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In Go, int is a built-in, signed integer data type whose memory footprint is architecture-dependent. It resolves to 32 bits (4 bytes) on 32-bit systems and 64 bits (8 bytes) on 64-bit systems.

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Technical Specifications

  • Zero Value: 0
  • Size: Evaluated via unsafe.Sizeof(int(0)), yielding 4 or 8 depending on the target compilation architecture (GOARCH).
  • Range (32-bit): -2³¹ to 2³¹-1 (-2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647)
  • Range (64-bit): -2⁶³ to 2⁶³-1 (-9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807)

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Syntax and Type Inference

When declaring an untyped integer literal, the Go compiler automatically infers the underlying type as int. 
// Explicit declaration
var a int = 10

// Short variable declaration (type inferred as int)
b := 20

// Zero-value initialization
var c int // c is initialized to 0

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Type Identity and Strict Typing

In Go’s type system, int is a distinct, named type. It is not an alias for int32 or int64. Because Go enforces strict typing and lacks implicit type coercion, you cannot assign an int to a variable of type int32 or int64 without an explicit conversion, even if the underlying architecture guarantees identical bit widths. 
var x int = 100
var y int64 = 100

// INVALID: Cannot use x (type int) as type int64 in assignment
// y = x 

// VALID: Requires explicit type conversion
y = int64(x)

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Memory Alignment

The alignment guarantee for int matches its size. Evaluated via unsafe.Alignof(int(0)), it aligns to a 4-byte boundary on 32-bit architectures and an 8-byte boundary on 64-bit architectures. This behavior directly impacts struct padding when int fields are interleaved with smaller data types like bool or int8.
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