As with all other parts of the standard library, Go provides us with documentation for the JSON module. Like most Go documentation it is complete, but not always the easiest for beginners to understand. So let’s start from the beginning.

JSON and Static Typing

Parsing a format like JSON in a statically typed language like Go presents a bit of a problem. If anything could show up in the JSON body, how does the compiler know how to setup memory to have a spot to place everything?

There are two answers to this. The easy option, for when you know what your data will look like, is to parse the JSON into a struct you’ve defined. Any field which doesn’t fit in the struct will just be ignored. We’ll cover that option first.

Parsing into a Struct

Here’s an example of parsing into a struct:

type App struct { Id string `json:"id"` Title string `json:"title"` } data := []byte(` { "id": "k34rAT4", "title": "My Awesome App" } `) var app App err := json.Unmarshal(data, &app)

What you’re left with is app populated with the parsed JSON that was in data . You’ll also notice that the go term for parsing json is “Unmarshalling”.

Rendering from a Struct

Outputting from a struct works exactly as parsing but in reverse:

data, err := json.Marshal(app)

As with all structs in Go, it’s important to remember that only fields with a capital first letter are visible to external programs like the JSON Marshaller.

One thing you’ll notice is the “tagged” data included in our struct between backticks. The JSON parser reads from that several clues about how to parse that value.

The Field Name

As you might know, Go requires all exported fields to start with a capitalized letter. It’s not common to use that style in JSON however. We use the tag to let the parser know where to actually look for the value.

You can see an example of that in the example above, but as a refresher this is what it looks like:

type MyStruct struct { SomeField string `json:"some_field"` }

What to do if the Field is Empty

The JSON parser also accepts a flag in the tag to let it know what to do if the field is empty. The omitempty flag tells it to not include the JSON value in the output if it’s the “zero-value” for that type.

The “zero-value” for numbers is 0, for strings it’s the empty string, for maps, slices and pointers it’s nil. This is how you include the omitempty flag.

type MyStruct struct { SomeField string `json:"some_field,omitempty"` }

Notice that the flag goes inside the quotes.

If the SomeField was an empty string, and you converted it to JSON, some_field wouldn’t be included in the output at all.

In other words, if some_field == "" :

With omitempty the JSON value would be {}

the JSON value would be Without omitempty the JSON value would be {"some_field": ""}

omitempty is valuable when you deprecate a field and no longer want it to be included in output, when you have a flag which defaults to false so there’s no need to include it, or when you are only ever operating on your data with Go, so there’s no harm in using the built-in “zero-value” as the default.

Skipping Fields

To have the JSON parser/writer skip a field, just give it the name "-" . For example:

type App struct { Id string `json:"id"` Password string `json:"-"` }

It can also make sense to have a field which will be parsed if it’s available, but will never be outputted. The native JSON parser doesn’t have that option, but here is an example implementation.

Nested Fields

Nested fields refers to structs which are properties of other structs. In short, nested fields work exactly as you’d expect. You can nest a slice, map or other struct inside your struct and the JSON will recursively parse everything correctly. If you have a field which can be anything, you can always use the interface{} type.

Go also supports nesting one struct in another. For example:

type App struct { Id string `json:"id"` } type Org struct { Name string `json:"name"` } type AppWithOrg struct { App Org }

You can parse into a value with the AppWithOrg type, and it will have all the properties. You can also pull the .App or .Org out of it. For example:

data := []byte(` { "id": "k34rAT4", "name": "My Awesome Org" } `) var appWithOrg AppWithOrg err := json.Unmarshal(data, &appWithOrg) app := appWithOrg.App org := appWithOrg.Org // AND/OR appId := appWithOrg.Id orgName := appWithOrg.Name

Combining structs like this might seem strange, but it’s very valuable if you, for example, have an API which includes some extra data with your actual value.

Pointers

Pointers are dereferenced before the JSON is encoded. In other words, it’s as if you used the real value, not a pointer.

Handling Errors

Always be sure to check the err parameter returned by Marshal and Unmarshal . It is, for example, how you’ll know if there’s an error in the syntax of the JSON you’re parsing. If you don’t check it, your program will continue executing with the zeroed-out struct you’ve already created, potentially causing confusing behavior downstream.

Errors are less common during marshals, but they can occur if Go can’t figure out how to convert one of your types to JSON. For example if you try to marshal something containing a nil pointer.

If you don’t want to deal with handling errors in every marshal, and marshal errors are suitably uncommon, one option is to convert errors into panics with a MustMarshal function:

func MustMarshal(data interface{}) []byte { out, err := json.Marshal(data) if err != nil { panic(err) } return out }

Parsing into an Interface

If you have truly no idea what your JSON might look like, you can parse it into a generic interface{} . If you’re not familiar an empty interface{} is a way of defining a variable in Go as “this could be anything”. At runtime Go will then allocate the appropriate memory to fit whatever you decide to store in it.

This is what it looks like:

var parsed interface{} err := json.Unmarshal(data, &parsed)

Actually using parsed is a bit laborious, as Go can’t use it without knowing what type it is. You can end up with code which tries the kitchen sink:

switch parsed.(type) { case int: someGreatIntFunction(parsed.(int)) case map: someMapThing(parsed.(map)) default: panic("JSON type not understood") }

You can also do similar type assertions inline:

intVal, ok := parsed.(int) if !ok { panic("JSON value must be an int") }

Fortunately however, it’s rare to truly have no idea what a value might be. If, for example, you know your JSON value is an object, you can parse it into a map[string]interface{} . This gives you the advantage of being able to refer to specific keys. An example:

var parsed map[string]interface{} data := []byte(` { "id": "k34rAT4", "age": 24 } `) err := json.Unmarshal(data, &parsed)

You can then refer to specific keys without a problem:

parsed["id"]

You still have interfaces as the value of your map however, so you must do type assertions to use them:

idString := parsed["id"].(string)

Go uses these six types for all values parsed into interfaces:

bool, for JSON booleans float64, for JSON numbers string, for JSON strings []interface{}, for JSON arrays map[string]interface{}, for JSON objects nil for JSON null

Meaning, your numbers will always be of type float64 , and will need to be casted to int , for example. If you have a particular need to get ints directly, you can use the UseNumber method. Which gives you an object which can be converted to either a float64 or an int at your discretion.

Similarly, all objects decoded into an interface will be map[string]interface{} , and will need to be manually mapped to whatever struct you may wish to place them in.

Numbers

We already talked about the issue with converting javascript numbers into Go values when using interfaces. Javascript only has one numeric type, so Go must always use a float64 unless you ask it explicitly for an integer. Another important point to realize is that since Javascript only has 64 bit floating point numbers, you can’t precisely represent an integer of more than 53 bits. If you want to transmit a 64 bit integer to the client, Go 1.3 added the ability to pass it as a string:

type MyStruct struct { Int64String int64 `json:",string"` }

Creating Encodable Types

The JSON module includes two interfaces. Marshaler and Unmarshaler.

Both interfaces just require a single method. If you add those two methods to your type, it will be encodable as JSON. One great example of that is the time.Time type.

Another example:

type Month struct { MonthNumber int YearNumber int } func (m Month) MarshalJSON() ([]byte, error){ return []byte(fmt.Sprintf("%d/%d", m.MonthNumber, m.YearNumber)), nil } func (m *Month) UnmarshalJSON(value []byte) error { parts := strings.Split(string(value), "/") m.MonthNumber = strconv.ParseInt(parts[0], 10, 32) m.YearNumber = strconv.ParseInt(parts[1], 10, 32) return nil }

Go decides what marshaller and unmarshaller to use based on the types you are encoding or decoding to. If you’re encoding an interface, or decoding to an interface, there is no way for Go to know what marshaller to use, and it will default to the six types listed above.

Deferred Decoding

At times it can be convenient to only decode a structure into its relevant struct after reading some properties from it. You can specify your nested struct structure as a RawMessage . RawMessages aren’t decoded immediately, allowing you to place the contents of that portion of your JSON in the struct of your choice when you’re ready.

Conclusion

Go is a (mostly) strongly typed language, and therefore working with JSON is always going to be tricky. That said, the Go creators have done an admirable job creating something which is usable, if not always succinct. While it would be flattering if this were the only reference you needed, the Go documentation is the definitive source for help.

Thanks to /u/joeshaw for corrections.

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