trying to create reusable append to struct in go - go

i am trying to make reusable method / func in go to push valu struct to another slice/ array in struct
i tried like this
import (
"fmt"
)
type ErrorValidate struct {
ErrorKey string
Message string
}
type ValidateMessage struct {
ErrorMessage []*ErrorValidate
}
func (v *ValidateMessage) AddError(err ErrorValidate) {
v.ErrorMessage = append(v.ErrorMessage, &err)
}
func main() {
s1 := *ValidateMessage{}
s1.AddError(&ErrorValidate{"theKey", "string"})
fmt.Println(*s1)
}
got error invalid indirect of ValidateMessage literal (type ValidateMessage)
the link here https://play.golang.org/p/VjdsiZQLroF
on those case i have a func for Validate something and then i tried to push error message on ErrorValidate , but i keep using append in my conditional, i am trying to make it reduce but got error above

There are a couple problems in your code. This one is generating your error (nothing to do with your append, or that method at all):
s1 := *ValidateMessage{}
This is not valid syntax. You probably meant s1 := &ValidateMessage{}.
s1.AddError(&ErrorValidate{"theKey", "string"})
You're trying to pass a *ErrorValidate to a function that takes a ErrorValidate. This should be s1.AddError(ErrorValidate{"theKey", "string"}).

Related

How to declare and use a struct field which can store both string and int values?

I've the following struct:
type testCase struct {
input string
isValid bool
}
I want to use this struct in multiple tests and input could be either a string or an intetc.
I can convert the int input to string and convert it back to int while processing, or I can define two different structs e.g. testCaseInt and testCaseStruct which will solve my problem but how do I solve this by converting input to an interface?
I'm new to Go and tried Googling about this but couldn't find maybe because I don't know what to search for.
How to declare and use a variable which can store both string and int values in Go?
You cannot. Go's type system (as of Go 1.17) doesn't provide sum types.
You will have to wait for Go 1.18.
tl;dr the trade-off is between static typing and flexible containers.
Up to Go 1.17 you cannot have a struct field with different static types. The best you can have is interface{}, and then assert the dynamic type upon usage. This effectively allows you to have containers of testCases with either type at run time.
type testCase struct {
input interface{}
isValid bool
}
func main() {
// can initialize container with either type
cases := []testCase{{500, false}, {"foobar", true}}
// must type-assert when using
n := cases[0].(int)
s := cases[1].(string)
}
With Go 1.18, you can slightly improve on type safety, in exchange for less flexibility.
Parametrize the struct with a union. This statically restricts the allowed types, but the struct now must be instantiated explicitly, so you can't have containers with different instantiations. This may or may not be compatible with your goals.
type testCase[T int | string] struct {
input T
isValid bool
}
func main() {
// must instantiate with a concrete type
cases := []testCase[int]{
{500, false}, // ok, field takes int value
/*{"foobar", true}*/, // not ok, "foobar" not assignable to int
}
// cases is a slice of testCase with int fields
}
No, instantiating as testCase[any] is a red herring. First of all, any just doesn't satisfy the constraint int | string; even if you relax that, it's actually worse than the Go 1.17 solution, because now instead of using just testCase in function arguments, you must use exactly testCase[any].
Parametrize the struct with a union but still use interface{}/any as field type: (How) can I implement a generic `Either` type in go? . This also doesn't allow to have containers with both types.
In general, if your goal is to have flexible container types (slices, maps, chans) with either type, you have to keep the field as interface{}/any and assert on usage. If you just want to reuse code with static typing at compile-time and you are on Go 1.18, use the union constraint.
Method 1:
package main
import (
"fmt"
)
func main() {
var a interface{}
a = "hi"
if valString, ok := a.(string); ok {
fmt.Printf("String: %s", valString)
}
a = 1
if valInt, ok := a.(int); ok {
fmt.Printf("\nInteger: %d", valInt)
}
}
Method 2:
package main
import (
"fmt"
)
func main() {
print("hi")
print(1)
}
func print(a interface{}) {
switch t := a.(type) {
case int:
fmt.Printf("Integer: %v\n", t)
case string:
fmt.Printf("String: %v\n", t)
}
}
only you can do is this, change string with interface{}
check on play (it works fine)
https://go.dev/play/p/pwSZiZp5oVx
package main
import "fmt"
type testCase struct {
input interface{}
isValid bool
}
func main() {
test1 := testCase{}
test1.input = "STRING". // <-------------------STRING
fmt.Printf("input: %v \n", test1)
test2 := testCase{}
test2.input = 1 // <-------------------INT
fmt.Printf("input: %v \n", test2)
}

Golang get string representation of specific struct field name

I really want a way to print the string representation of a field name in go. It has several use cases, but here is an example:
lets say I have a struct
type Test struct {
Field string `bson:"Field" json:"field"`
OtherField int `bson:"OtherField" json:"otherField"`
}
and, for example, I want to do a mongo find:
collection.Find(bson.M{"OtherField": someValue})
I don't like that I have to put the string "OtherField" in there. It seems brittle and easy to either misstype or have the struct change and then my query fails without me knowing it.
Is there any way to get the string "OtherField" without having to either declare a const or something like that? I know I can use reflection to a get a list of field names from a struct, but I'd really like to do something along the lines of
fieldName := nameOf(Test{}.OtherField)
collection.Find(bson.M{fieldName: someValue})
is there any way to do this in Go?? C# 6 has the built in nameof, but digging through reflection I can't find any way to do this in Go.
I don't really think there is. You may be able to load a set of types via reflection and generate a set of constants for the field names. So:
type Test struct {
Field string `bson:"Field" json:"field"`
OtherField int `bson:"OtherField" json:"otherField"`
}
Could generate something like:
var TestFields = struct{
Field string
OtherField string
}{"Field","OtherField"}
and you could use TestFields.Field as a constant.
Unfortunately, I don't know of any existing tool that does anything like that. Would be fairly simple to do, and wire up to go generate though.
EDIT:
How I'd generate it:
Make a package that accepts an array of reflect.Type or interface{} and spits out a code file.
Make a generate.go somewhere in my repo with main function:
func main(){
var text = mygenerator.Gen(Test{}, OtherStruct{}, ...)
// write text to constants.go or something
}
Add //go:generate go run scripts/generate.go to my main app and run go generate
Here is a function that will return a []string with the struct field names. I think it comes in the order they are defined.
WARNING: Reordering the fields in the struct definition will change the order in which they appear
https://play.golang.org/p/dNATzNn47S
package main
import (
"fmt"
"strings"
"regexp"
)
type Test struct {
Field string `bson:"Field" json:"field"`
OtherField int `bson:"OtherField" json:"otherField"`
}
func main() {
fields, err := GetFieldNames(Test{})
if err != nil {
fmt.Println(err)
return
}
fmt.Println(fields)
}
func GetFieldNames(i interface{}) ([]string, error) {
// regular expression to find the unquoted json
reg := regexp.MustCompile(`(\s*?{\s*?|\s*?,\s*?)(['"])?(?P<Field>[a-zA-Z0-9]+)(['"])?:`)
// print struct in almost json form (fields unquoted)
raw := fmt.Sprintf("%#v", i)
// remove the struct name so string begins with "{"
fjs := raw[strings.Index(raw,"{"):]
// find and grab submatch 3
matches := reg.FindAllStringSubmatch(fjs,-1)
// collect
fields := []string{}
for _, v := range matches {
if len(v) >= 3 && v[3] != "" {
fields = append(fields, v[3])
}
}
return fields, nil
}

Pointer newbie - Correct me

I am still learning go and need a hand to clear my head.
Following program output Power value as 1 in each Println. I was expecting 1 as first output and 2 as second output.
My assumption was the Change func overwrite the address of s with anew address and this change will reflect back to the caller (main func). In such case, the original address would be pointing to newly created address when it call the second Println.
My assumption is wrong but I can't figure out why.
package main
import (
"fmt"
)
type Pod struct{
Power int
}
func main() {
pod := &Pod{1}
fmt.Println(pod.Power)
Change(pod)
fmt.Println(pod.Power)
}
func Change(s *Pod) {
s = &Pod{2}
}
Code
To explore further on what happens under cover, I did tried to print addresses this time and it looks like below;
import (
"fmt"
)
type Pod struct{
Power int
}
func main() {
pod := &Pod{ 1}
fmt.Println(&pod) //0xc04202c020
Change(pod)
fmt.Println(&pod) //0xc04202c020
}
func Change(s *Pod) {
fmt.Println(&s) //0xc04202c030 ( I was expecting 0xc04202c020 here)
s = &Pod{ 2}
fmt.Println(&s) //0xc04202c030
}
It's because when you pass arguments to functions etc, they are always passed by value.
In other words, even though you are accepting a pointer in the function parameter, the address of the struct will be copied.
Then when you assign to s to try and change the address it only changes that local copy, not the one outside the function.
To change the address from within the function you would need to pass in a pointer pointer, then assign to the dereferenced s, for example:
package main
import (
"fmt"
)
type Pod struct {
Power int
}
func main() {
pod := &Pod{1}
fmt.Println(pod.Power)
Change(&pod)
fmt.Println(pod.Power)
}
func Change(s **Pod) {
*s = &Pod{2}
}
In this case a copy of an address is still being passed into the function, but because it's a pointer to a pointer it means that when you dereference s as *s you will get the address of the struct outside of the function. This means if you assign to *s you can change the address of the pointer outside the function.
Of course, like Andy Schweig says, you probably wouldn't really want to do that though, and would probably just change individual fields as needed with the normal pointer version of the function.
package main
import (
"fmt"
)
type Pod struct {
Power int
}
func main() {
pod := &Pod{1}
fmt.Println(pod.Power)
Change(pod)
fmt.Println(pod.Power)
}
func Change(s *Pod) {
s.Power = 2
}
This works because when you type s.Power = 2 Go will actually do something like (*s).Power = 2 for you. So it automatically dereferences s for you which gives you the actual Pod struct to work with.
You can't do *s = &Pod{2} in this normal pointer example because in that case *s will actually equal type Pod, not *Pod.
Because of that if you want to use the &Pod{2} syntax to assign an address you need to pass a pointer to the pointer. In the case of s **Pod the dereferenced *s will point to the address of the Pod instead of the actual Pod, so *s will be of type *Pod which allows you to assign &Pod{2}.
Having said all of that, a **Pod is only required if you want to assign an address with the &Pod{2} syntax.
If you don't need to use the &Pod{2} syntax you can just dereference s and assign with a normal Pod{2}.
package main
import (
"fmt"
)
type Pod struct {
Power int
}
func main() {
pod := &Pod{1}
fmt.Println(pod.Power)
Change(pod)
fmt.Println(pod.Power)
}
func Change(s *Pod) {
*s = Pod{2}
}
This also works, because now s is a copy of an address, and when you dereference you get to the value outside the function which is type Pod, not *Pod.
That means you can just assign to it by removing the &.
Basically if you use & it means you want to assign an address rather than the actual value.
I hope this explanation isn't too confusing. I explained using a **Pod because I thought you wanted to use the &Pod{2} syntax rather than Pod{2}, but if that's not the case then my s.Power = 2 or *s = Pod{2} examples may make more sense.
Changing the value of a parameter to a function inside the function never has an effect on the parameter passed by the caller. All parameters are passed by value. If you want to change the value of Power inside the object pointed to by s (pod in the caller), use s.Power = 2. If you actually want to set the pointer variable in the caller to a different Pod object, you need to declare the parameter to Change as s **pos, change the assignment in the function to *s = &Pod{2}, and call Change(&pod). That's probably not what you want to do, though.

Restore type information after passing through function as "interface {}"?

I'm running into a slight architectural problem with Golang right now that's causing me to copy/paste a bit more code than I'd prefer. I feel like there must be a solution, so please let me know if this is perhaps possible:
When I pass things through an interface {}-typed function parameter, I start getting errors such as "expected struct or slice", etc. ... even though what I passed was previously a struct or a slice. I realize that I could manually convert these to another type after receiving them in that function, but then that become tedious in instances such as this:
local interface type *interface {} can only be decoded from remote
interface type; received concrete type
... In this case, the receiving function seems like it'd need to be hard-coded to convert all interface {} items back to their respective original types in order to work properly, because the receiving function needs to know the exact type in order to process the item correctly.
Is there a way to dynamically re-type Golang interface {} typed variables back to their original type? Something like this, How to I convert reflect.New's return value back to the original type ... maybe?
EDIT: To clarify, basically, I'm passing &out to a function and it needs to be its original type by the time it reaches another inner function call.
Example code:
// NOTE: This is sort of pseudo-Golang code, not meant to be compiled or taken too seriously.
func PrepareTwoDifferentThings(keyA string, keyB string) {
var somethingA TypeA;
var somethingB TypeB;
loadFromCache(keyA, &somethingA, nil);
loadFromCache(keyB, &somethingB, nil);
fmt.Printf("Somethings: %v, %v", somethingA, somethingB);
}
func loadFromCache(key string, isNew, out interface {}, saveNewData interface {}) {
if err := cache.load(key, &out); err!=nil { // NOTE: Current issue is that this expects "&out" to be `TypeA`/`TypeB` not "interface {}", but I don't want to copy and paste this whole function's worth of code or whatever.
panic("oh no!");
}
if (saveNewData!=nil) {
cache.save(key, saveNewData); // This doesn't seem to care if "saveNewData" is "interface {}" when saving, but later cache fetches above using the "load()" method to an "interface {}"-typed `&out` parameter throw an exception that the "interface {}" type on `&out` does not match the original when it was saved here (`TypeA`/`TypeB`).
}
}
To change the type of an interface into its rightful type, you can use type assertions:
package main
import r "reflect"
type A struct {
Name string
}
func main() {
// No pointer
aa := A{"name"}
var ii interface{} = aa
bb := ii.(A)
// main.A
// Pointer
a := &A{"name"}
var i interface{} = a
b := *i.(*A)
// main.A
c := i.(*A)
// *main.A
d := r.Indirect(r.ValueOf(i)).Interface().(A)
// main.A
}
Playground 1
When using type assertions, you have to know the underlying type of your interface. In Go, there is no way to use type assertion with a dynamic type. reflect.Type is not a type, it's an interface representing a type. So no, you can't use it this way.
If you have several type possibilities, the solution is the type switch:
package main
import "fmt"
type TypeA struct {
A string
}
type TypeB struct {
B string
}
func doSomethingA(t TypeA) {
fmt.Println(t.A)
}
func doSomethingB(t TypeB) {
fmt.Println(t.B)
}
func doSomething(t interface{}) {
switch t := t.(type) {
case TypeA:
doSomethingA(t)
case TypeB:
doSomethingB(t)
default:
panic("Unrecognized type")
}
}
func main() {
a := TypeA{"I am A"}
b := TypeB{"I am B"}
doSomething(a)
// I am A
doSomething(b)
// I am B
}
Playground 2
It turns out that using JSON instead of Gob for serialization avoids the error that I was encountering entirely. Other functions can handle passing into interfaces, etc.

Golang type conversion/assertion issue with unmarshalling json

package main
import (
"fmt"
"encoding/json"
"reflect"
)
type GeneralConfig map[string]interface{}
var data string = `
{
"key":"value",
"important_key":
{"foo":"bar"}
}`
func main() {
jsonData := &GeneralConfig{}
json.Unmarshal([]byte(data), jsonData)
fmt.Println(reflect.TypeOf(jsonData)) //main.GeneralConfig
jsonTemp := (*jsonData)["important_key"]
fmt.Println(reflect.TypeOf(jsonTemp)) //map[string]interface {}
//newGeneralConfig := GeneralConfig(jsonTemp)
//cannot convert jsonTemp (type interface {}) to type GeneralConfig:
//need type assertion
newGeneralConfig := jsonTemp.(GeneralConfig)
//fmt.Println(reflect.TypeOf(newGeneralConfig))
//panic: interface conversion: interface {} is map[string]interface {},
//not main.GeneralConfig
}
Available at the playground
I understand that I can use a nested struct in lieu of GeneralConfig, but that would require me knowing the exact structure of the payload, ie it wouldn't work for different keys (I would be locked into "important_key").
Is there a golang workaround for when I don't know what the value of "important_key" is? I say golang, because if possible, one could require all "important_keys" to have a constant parent key, which could resolve this issue.
To summarize, given an arbitrary json object, there must be a way that I can traverse its keys, and if a value is a custom type, convert the value to that type. Right now it seems that if I use type conversion, it tells me that the type is interface{} and I need to use type assertion; however, if I use type assertion, it tells me that interface{} is map[string]interface{} not main.GeneralConfig.
I agree the comments about trying to utilise the expected structure of the incoming JSON in order to write well-defined Structs, but I'll attempt to answer the question anyway.
The thing to take away from what you're seeing printed versus the error messages that you're seeing is that the compiler knows less about the type than the runtime because the runtime can look at the actual value. To bring the compiler up-to-speed we must (i) assert (*jsonData)["important_key"] is a map[string]interface{} -- the compiler only knows it to be an interface{} -- and then (ii) type-cast that to a GeneralConfig type. See:
package main
import (
"fmt"
"encoding/json"
)
type GeneralConfig map[string]interface{}
func main() {
jsonStruct := new(GeneralConfig)
json.Unmarshal([]byte(`{"parent_key": {"foo": "bar"}}`), jsonStruct)
fmt.Printf("%#v\n", jsonStruct)
// => &main.GeneralConfig{"parent_key":map[string]interface {}{"foo":"bar"}}
nestedStruct := (*jsonStruct)["parent_key"]
fmt.Printf("%#v\n", nestedStruct)
// => map[string]interface {}{"foo":"bar"}
// Whilst this shows the runtime knows its actual type is
// map[string]interface, the compiler only knows it to be an interface{}.
// First we assert for the compiler that it is indeed a
// map[string]interface{} we are working with. You can imagine the issues
// that might arrise if we has passed in `{"parent_key": 123}`.
mapConfig, ok := nestedStruct.(map[string]interface{})
if !ok {
// TODO: Error-handling.
}
// Now that the compiler can be sure mapConfig is a map[string]interface{}
// we can type-cast it to GeneralConfig:
config := GeneralConfig(mapConfig)
fmt.Printf("%#v\n", config)
// => main.GeneralConfig{"foo":"bar"}
}
You are looking for json.RawMessage.
You can delay unmarshalling based upon some other value and then force it to unmarshal to a specific type.
This is not a good idea, but might be closer to what you are looking for.
http://play.golang.org/p/PWwAUDySE0
This is a standard "workaround" if get what you're after. When handling unknown data you can implement this pattern (modified from your example) of switching on the type recursively to get to the concrete values in an unknown body of json data.
package main
import (
"encoding/json"
"fmt"
"reflect"
)
var data = `
{
"key":"value",
"important_key":
{"foo":"bar"}
}`
func main() {
var jsonData interface{}
json.Unmarshal([]byte(data), &jsonData)
fmt.Println(reflect.TypeOf(jsonData))
parseArbitraryJSON(jsonData.(map[string]interface{}))
}
func parseArbitraryJSON(data map[string]interface{}) {
for k, v := range data {
switch a := v.(type) {
case string:
fmt.Printf("%v:%v\n", k, a)
case map[string]interface{}:
fmt.Printf("%v:%v\n", k, a)
parseArbitraryJSON(a)
}
}
}
The resulting output is:
map[string]interface {}
key:value
important_key:map[foo:bar]
foo:bar
This example only accounts for the base data being a string type but you can switch on any type that you expect to receive, and like any switch you can group your cases, so you can treat all numbers similarly for example.

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