by Christopher.Pfohl:

What is the expected output?

String types from a database should have a go type of 'string' in Scanner.Scan.

What do you see instead?

String types have a go type of `[]byte`

Which compiler are you using (5g, 6g, 8g, gccgo)?

Whatever installed when I apt-get'ed from ppa:duh/golang

Which operating system are you using?

Ubuntu 13.04

Which version are you using?  (run 'go version')

1.1.1 linux/amd64

Please provide any additional information below.

database/sql/driver.Rows.Next's documentation states that all strings ought to be
converted to []byte

database/sql.Scanner.Scan's documentation suggests that a string is a legitimate type to
expect...but all the types that actually *are* strings actually wind up being []byte
because the driver's obey the above documentation (see mgodbc for a case in point, line
916).

Note, that removing the conversion to []byte still works, so I suspect that the
database/sql/driver.Rows.Next documentation is simply out of date.