Merge structs with some overlapping fields - go

Question

I saw several questions asking on how to merge unique structs and how to merge identical structs.
But how would I merge structs that have some overlap? and which fields get taken & when?
e.g.:
type structOne struct {
id string `json:id`
date string `json:date`
desc string `json:desc`
}
and
type structTwo struct {
id string `json:id`
date string `json:date`
name string `json:name`
}
how would I merge it such that I get
{
id string `json:id`
date string `json:date`
desc string `json:desc`
name string `json:name`
}
also, what happens if in this case the two id's are the same (assuming a join over id's) but the names are different?
In javascript, doing something like Object.assign(structOne, structTwo).

Answer 1

Go is a strongly typed language, unlike javascript you can't merge two struct into one combined struct because all type are determined at compile-time. You have two solution here :
Using embedded struct:
One great solution is to use embedded struct because you don't have to merge anything anymore.
package main
import (
"bytes"
"encoding/json"
"fmt"
"log"
)
// Shared field
type common struct {
ID string `json:id`
Date string `json:date`
}
type merged struct {
// Common field is embedded
common
Name string `json:name`
Desc string `json:desc`
}
func main() {
buf := bytes.Buffer{}
buf.WriteString("{ \"id\": \"1\", \"date\": \"27/07/2020\", \"desc\": \"the decription...\" }")
merged := &merged{}
err := json.Unmarshal(buf.Bytes(), merged)
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
// Look how you can easily access field from
// embedded struct
fmt.Println("ID:", merged.ID)
fmt.Println("Date:", merged.Date)
fmt.Println("Name:", merged.Name)
fmt.Println("Desc:", merged.Desc)
// Output:
// ID: 1
// Date: 27/07/2020
// Name:
// Desc: the decription...
}
If you want to read more about struct embedding:
golangbyexample.com
travix.io
Using Maps
Another solution is to use maps but you will loose the benefits of struct and methods. This example is not the simplest but there is some great example in the other responses.
In this example I'm using Mergo. Mergo is library that can merge structs and map. Here it is used for creating maps object in the Map methods but you can totally write your own methods.
package main
import (
"fmt"
"log"
"github.com/imdario/mergo"
)
type tOne struct {
ID string
Date string
Desc string
}
// Map build a map object from the struct tOne
func (t1 tOne) Map() map[string]interface{} {
m := make(map[string]interface{}, 3)
if err := mergo.Map(&m, t1); err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
return m
}
type tTwo struct {
ID string
Date string
Name string
}
// Map build a map object from the struct tTwo
func (t2 tTwo) Map() map[string]interface{} {
m := make(map[string]interface{}, 3)
if err := mergo.Map(&m, t2); err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
return m
}
func main() {
dst := tOne{
ID: "destination",
Date: "26/07/2020",
Desc: "destination object",
}.Map()
src := tTwo{
ID: "src",
Date: "26/07/1010",
Name: "source name",
}.Map()
if err := mergo.Merge(&dst, src); err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
fmt.Printf("Destination:\n%+v", dst)
// Output:
// Destination:
// map[date:26/07/2020 desc:destination object iD:destination name:object name
}

Answer 2

Go structs and JavaScript objects are very different. Go structs do not have dynamic fields.
If you want dynamic key/value sets that you can easily iterate over and merge, and are very JSON friendly, why not a map[string]interface{}?
$ go run t.go
map[a:1 b:4]
map[a:1 b:4 c:3]
$ cat t.go
package main
import(
"fmt"
)
type MyObj map[string]interface{}
func (mo MyObj)Merge(omo MyObj){
for k, v := range omo {
mo[k] = v
}
}
func main() {
a := MyObj{"a": 1, "b": 4}
b := MyObj{"b": 2, "c": 3}
b.Merge(a)
fmt.Printf("%+v\n%+v\n", a, b)
}

Answer 3

you can use github.com/fatih/structs to convert your struct to map. Then iterate over that map and choose which fields need to copy over. I have a snippet of code which illustrates this solution.
func MergeStruct (a structOne,b structTwo) map[string]interface{}{
a1:=structs.Map(a)
b1:=structs.Map(b)
/* values of structTwo over writes values of structOne */
var myMap=make(map[string]interface{})
for val,key:=range(a1){
myMap[key]=val
}
for val,key:=range(b1){
myMap[key]=val
}
return myMap
}

Answer 4

You can use the reflect package to do this. Try iterating through the two structs and then you can either use another struct type to store the values or maybe use a map.
Check out this question to find out how you can iterate over a struct.
Check out this question to find out how to get the name of the fields.
Remember to use exported field names for the reflect package to work.
Here is an example which works.