Type converting slices of interfaces

In Go, there is a general rule that syntax should not hide complex/costly operations.

Converting a string to an interface{} is done in O(1) time. Converting a []string to an interface{} is also done in O(1) time since a slice is still one value. However, converting a []string to an []interface{} is O(n) time because each element of the slice must be converted to an interface{}.

The one exception to this rule is converting strings. When converting a string to and from a []byte or a []rune, Go does O(n) work even though conversions are “syntax”.

There is no standard library function that will do this conversion for you. Your best option though is just to use the lines of code you gave in your question:

b := make([]interface{}, len(a))
for i := range a {
    b[i] = a[i]
}

Otherwise, you could make one with reflect, but it would be slower than the three line option. Example with reflection:

func InterfaceSlice(slice interface{}) []interface{} {
    s := reflect.ValueOf(slice)
    if s.Kind() != reflect.Slice {
        panic("InterfaceSlice() given a non-slice type")
    }

    // Keep the distinction between nil and empty slice input
    if s.IsNil() {
        return nil
    }

    ret := make([]interface{}, s.Len())

    for i:=0; i<s.Len(); i++ {
        ret[i] = s.Index(i).Interface()
    }

    return ret
}