Wow, interesting. I didn't know that even worked on Linux!

$ cat dial.go 
package main

import (
        "log"
        "net"
)

func main() {
        c, err := net.Dial("tcp", ":8080")
        log.Printf("c, err = %#T, %v", c, err)
}

$ go run dial.go 
2016/04/09 23:27:30 c, err = *net.TCPConn, <nil>

So does it mean localhost? Should we keep this working and add tests so we don't regress and it works on Windows? I guess so.

/cc @mikioh @alexbrainman @ianlancetaylor

This is a duplicate of #6290. Still not sure whether a wildcard address, "0.0.0.0", "::" or "", means the entire IP addressing space or any available address on the routing instance.

What @mikioh said.

Alex

#6290 is marked as closed, but I see some issue on Windows when using the redis.Dial. not sure if my error has to do anything with the go directly, but wanted to post here if it helps anyone. I reported the issue in the redigo repo too.

working
redis.Dial("tcp", "localhost:6379")

NOT working
redis.Dial("tcp", ":6379")
error message: dial tcp :6379: connectex: The requested address is not valid in its context.

My environment:

$ go env
set GOARCH=amd64
set GOBIN=
set GOEXE=.exe
set GOHOSTARCH=amd64
set GOHOSTOS=windows
set GOOS=windows
set GOPATH=C:\gows
set GORACE=
set GOROOT=C:\Go
set GOTOOLDIR=C:\Go\pkg\tool\windows_amd64
set CC=gcc
set GOGCCFLAGS=-m64 -mthreads -fmessage-length=0
set CXX=g++
set CGO_ENABLED=1