unable to save pointer dereference in pointer receiver struct golang OOP - oop

Question

package main
import "fmt"
type rabbit struct {
food string
}
func (r *rabbit) change_food() {
(*r).food = "salad"
}
func main() {
var roger rabbit = rabbit{food: "carrot"}
(&roger).change_food()
fmt.Println(roger) //output --> salad
}
code above works, but I'd like to save (in the pointer receiver) the pointer dereference in a variable instead of writing every time (*r) without using shorthand because in my opinion with pointer receivers they are unclear/confusing. I prefer explicit dereference for cleaner code https://tour.golang.org/moretypes/4.
I tried this code:
package main
import "fmt"
type rabbit struct {
food string
}
func (r *rabbit) change_food() {
deref := *r //deref := (*r); var deref rabbit = (*r) also don't work
deref.food = "salad"
}
func main() {
var roger rabbit = rabbit{food: "carrot"}
(&roger).change_food()
fmt.Println(roger) //output --> carrot. I wanted salad
}
to mkopriva:
I'd like to not use (*r) form, like for example I did with memory address now:
package main
import "fmt"
type rabbit struct {
food string
}
func (r *rabbit) change_food() {
(*r).food = "salad"
}
func main() {
var roger rabbit = rabbit{food: "carrot"}
var p *rabbit = &roger
p.change_food() //before It was (&roger).change_food(), now code is cleaner
fmt.Println(roger) //output --> salad
}

Answer 1

Go automatically converts to and from pointers, both when calling methods, and when accessing attributes:
package main
import "fmt"
type rabbit struct {
food string
}
func (r *rabbit) change_food() {
r.food = "salad"
}
func main() {
var roger = rabbit{food: "carrot"}
roger.change_food()
fmt.Println(roger)
}
change_food receiver takes a pointer, so even though roger is not a pointer, Go handles that automatically.
Similarly, even though food is an attribute of a rabbit, not a *rabbit, Go figures this out hand handles things properly.
You can't dereference a pointer and then change the data at the address of that pointer. That's why pointers exist - so you can change the underlying data instead of passing a copy.
If it's just a question of a naming convention, you could always define the receiver's variable name with a p:
func (rp *rabbit) change_food() {
...
But it's not common in Go languages to denote pointer types like this, perhaps because Go is a lot smarter at typing than something like C, and it doesn't really get confusing between pointers and values.