I have a below function tryGet() to unit test:
type config struct {
Key string `json:"key"`
Client todo.Client `json:"client"`
}
var instance *config
func (c *config) tryGet() error {
client := &http.Client{}
tClient := Client{"http://url", client}
configValues := config{"Key", tClient}
Instance := &configValues
err := Instance.Client.perform("GET", header)
return nil
}
// External library in package named "todo" has the below structs and functions
package todo
type Client struct {
BaseURL string
HTTPClient *http.Client
}
func (client *Client) perform() error {
return nil
}
I am finding a hard time to mock the Client and perforn in external package todo
If the external library is not under your control, which I assume is the case, then you should assume that the code within is tested, therefore you should create the boundary at a point that you have control of the code.
To do this you should create the interface at the config struct boundary.
type ClientInterface interface {
perform() error
}
type config struct {
Url string `json:"url"`
Client ClientInterface `json:"client"`
}
var instance *config
func (c *config) tryGet() error {
err := c.Client.perform("GET", header)
return nil
}
By doing it this way, you don't care about testing the lower level code base and you just care that this module has a perform function and that given certain conditions your code behaves correctly.
You can then create a mock todo.Cient struct that you can replace the normal one with and have it return all sorts of things and behaviors to test your code.
You can mock the function as follow
type myImpl todo.Client
func (client *myImpl) perform() error {
// do what you want to assert in the test
return nil
}
And then you will use myImpl whenever you have to use todo.Client
if you are using a function with a parameter of type todo.Client, it will not work if you pass an argument of type myImpl. It will throw an error:
cannot use client (type myImpl) as type todo.Client in field value
To solve this issue, an interface can be created
type Client interface {
perform() error
}
Now the type Client should replace the type todo.Client of the function to be unit tested.
type config struct {
Url string `json:"url"`
Client Client `json:"client"`
}
With this change the above code which supply an implementation myImpl of the interface Client should work
Going through some go sources in the net/http and related libraries, I came across something that made me curious. I'm looking at version 1.12 here.
func (p *ReverseProxy) handleUpgradeResponse(rw http.ResponseWriter, req *http.Request, res *http.Response) {
...
hj, ok := rw.(http.Hijacker)
...
conn, brw, err := hj.Hijack()
...
}
I've been seeing stuff like this in more places and also outside the standard library. What is happening here? Are some methods of an interface implementation hidden until a specific assertion happens? Why can't I just call Hijack() on the rw object?
The methods appear to be hidden, because the function takes an interface type. The interface of http.ResponseWriter does not define the Hijack() method. This is defined in the http.Hijacker interface. A concrete type may implement multiple interfaces. But even if such concrete type is passed into a scope where its type definition is an interface, additional methods will not be accessible. So in the questioned example, type assertion is performed to make make the Hijack() method available.
Some examples (playground):
package main
import (
"fmt"
)
type Ship interface {
Load(containers []string)
Condition() []string
}
type Sea interface {
Draft() int
}
// seaShip implements the Sea and Ship interfaces
type seaShip struct {
containers []string
}
// Load is only part of the Ship interface
func (ss *seaShip) Load(containers []string) {
ss.containers = append(ss.containers, containers...)
}
// Condition is only part of the Ship interface
func (ss *seaShip) Condition() []string {
return ss.containers
}
// Draft is only part of the Sea interface
func (ss *seaShip) Draft() int {
return len(ss.containers)
}
// Pirates is not defined in any interface and therefore can only be called on the concrete type
func (ss *seaShip) Pirates() string {
return "Help!"
}
// NewShip returns an implementation of the Ship interface
func NewShip() Ship {
return &seaShip{}
}
func main() {
ship := NewShip()
ship.Load([]string{"Beer", "Wine", "Peanuts"})
fmt.Println(ship.Condition())
// Won't compile, method is not part of interface!
// fmt.Println(ship.Draft())
// Assert to make Draft() available
sea := ship.(Sea)
fmt.Println(sea.Draft())
// Won't compile, methods are not part of interface!
// fmt.Println(sea.Condition())
// fmt.Println(sea.Pirates())
// Assert to the concrete type makes all methods available
ss := sea.(*seaShip)
fmt.Println(ss.Condition())
fmt.Println(ss.Pirates())
}
I have a struct DbConnector which I want to use as a proxy to communicate with a database.
This struct has method Init(db *sql.DB).
Depending on conditions, I want to be able to initialise it with another struct, like DummyDatabaseConnection for testing.
How do I define the signature of Init() so that it accepts either *sql.DB or *DummyDatabaseConnection?
Define an Interface with some methods you need to call for *sql.DB & *DummyDatabaseConnection
type DBInterface interface {
Ping() error
Close() error
// Some other Methods that you need
}
Now your DummyDatabaseConnection should satisfy your DBInterface.
type DummyDatabaseConnection struct {
}
func(d *DummyDatabaseConnection) Ping()error {
return nil
}
func(d *DummyDatabaseConnection) Close()error {
return nil
}
Use your Interface as argument
func (d *DbConnector) Init(db DBInterface) {
db.Ping()
db.Close()
}
Call with which one you need.
dbConnector := &DbConnector{}
// Call with *sql.DB
db := &sql.DB{}
dbConnector.Init(db)
// Call with *DummyDatabaseConnection
db := &DummyDatabaseConnection{}
dbConnector.Init(db)
From your Init(db DBInterface) method, you only can call methods those are in DBInterface interface
Check this post
Hope this will help
I have the following code:
package vault
type Client interface {
GetHealth() error
}
func (c DefaultClient) GetHealth () error {
resp := &VaultHealthResponse{}
err := c.get(resp, "/v1/sys/health")
if err != nil {
return err
}
return nil;
}
Now, I want to use this function as part of this struct:
type DependencyHealthFunction func() error
type Dependency struct {
Name string `json:"name"`
Required bool `json:"required"`
Healthy bool `json:"healthy"`
Error error `json:"error,omitempty"`
HealthFunction DependencyHealthFunction
}
Basically, set the value of HealthFunction to GetHealth. Now, when I do the following:
func (config *Config) GetDependencies() *health.Dependency {
vaultDependency := health.Dependency{
Name: "Vault",
Required: true,
Healthy: true,
HealthFunction: vault.Client.GetHealth,
}
temp1 := &vaultDependency
return temp1;
}
This gives me an error and it says cannot use vault.Client.GetHealth (type func(vault.Client) error) as type health.DependencyHealthFunction in field value. How can I do this?
Edit: How DependencyHealthFunction is used?
As its part of Dependency struct, it's simply used as following: d.HealthFunction() where d is a variable of type *Dependency.
This is abstract:
HealthFunction: vault.Client.GetHealth,
If we were to call HealthFunction(), what code do you expect to run? vault.Client.GetHealth is just a promise that such a function exists; it isn't a function itself. Client is just an interface.
You need to create something that conforms to Client and pass its GetHealth. For example, if you had a existing DefaultClient such as:
defaultClient := DefaultClient{}
Then you could pass its function:
HealthFunction: defaultClient.GetHealth,
Now when you later call HealthFunction() it will be the same as calling defaultClient.GetHealth().
https://play.golang.org/p/9Lw7uc0GaE
I believe the issue is related to understanding how interfaces are treated in Go.
An interface simply defines a method or set of methods that a particular type must satisfy to be considered as "implementing" the interface.
For example:
import "fmt"
type Greeter interface {
SayHello() string
}
type EnglishGreeter struct{}
// Satisfaction of SayHello method
func (eg *EnglishGreeter) SayHello() string {
return "Hello"
}
type SpanishGreeter struct{}
func (sg *SpanishGreeter) SayHello() string {
return "Ola"
}
func GreetPerson(g Greeter) {
fmt.Println(g.SayHello())
}
func main() {
eg := &EnglishGreeter{}
sg := &SpanishGreeter{}
// greet person in english
GreetPerson(eg)
// greet person in spanish
GreetPerson(sg)
}
You can add this behavior into a custom struct by simply having a Greeter field inside the struct. ie
type FrontEntrance struct {
EntranceGreeter Greeter
}
fe := &FrontEntrance { EntranceGreeter: &EnglishGreeter{} }
// then call the SayHello() method like this
fe.EntranceGreeter.SayHello()
Interfaces in golang are useful for composing common expected behavior for types based on the methods that they satisfy.
Hope this helps.
sort package:
type Interface interface {
Len() int
Less(i, j int) bool
Swap(i, j int)
}
...
type reverse struct {
Interface
}
What is the meaning of anonymous interface Interface in struct reverse?
In this way reverse implements the sort.Interface and we can override a specific method
without having to define all the others
type reverse struct {
// This embedded Interface permits Reverse to use the methods of
// another Interface implementation.
Interface
}
Notice how here it swaps (j,i) instead of (i,j) and also this is the only method declared for the struct reverse even if reverse implement sort.Interface
// Less returns the opposite of the embedded implementation's Less method.
func (r reverse) Less(i, j int) bool {
return r.Interface.Less(j, i)
}
Whatever struct is passed inside this method we convert it to a new reverse struct.
// Reverse returns the reverse order for data.
func Reverse(data Interface) Interface {
return &reverse{data}
}
The real value comes if you think what would you have to do if this approach was not possible.
Add another Reverse method to the sort.Interface ?
Create another ReverseInterface ?
... ?
Any of this change would require many many more lines of code across thousands of packages that want to use the standard reverse functionality.
Ok, the accepted answer helped me understand, but I decided to post an explanation which I think suits better my way of thinking.
The "Effective Go" has example of interfaces having embedded other interfaces:
// ReadWriter is the interface that combines the Reader and Writer interfaces.
type ReadWriter interface {
Reader
Writer
}
and a struct having embedded other structs:
// ReadWriter stores pointers to a Reader and a Writer.
// It implements io.ReadWriter.
type ReadWriter struct {
*Reader // *bufio.Reader
*Writer // *bufio.Writer
}
But there is no mention of a struct having embedded an interface. I was confused seeing this in sort package:
type Interface interface {
Len() int
Less(i, j int) bool
Swap(i, j int)
}
...
type reverse struct {
Interface
}
But the idea is simple. It's almost the same as:
type reverse struct {
IntSlice // IntSlice struct attaches the methods of Interface to []int, sorting in increasing order
}
methods of IntSlice being promoted to reverse.
And this:
type reverse struct {
Interface
}
means that sort.reverse can embed any struct that implements interface sort.Interface and whatever methods that interface has, they will be promoted to reverse.
sort.Interface has method Less(i, j int) bool which now can be overridden:
// Less returns the opposite of the embedded implementation's Less method.
func (r reverse) Less(i, j int) bool {
return r.Interface.Less(j, i)
}
My confusion in understanding
type reverse struct {
Interface
}
was that I thought that a struct always has fixed structure, i.e. fixed number of fields of fixed types.
But the following proves me wrong:
package main
import "fmt"
// some interface
type Stringer interface {
String() string
}
// a struct that implements Stringer interface
type Struct1 struct {
field1 string
}
func (s Struct1) String() string {
return s.field1
}
// another struct that implements Stringer interface, but has a different set of fields
type Struct2 struct {
field1 []string
dummy bool
}
func (s Struct2) String() string {
return fmt.Sprintf("%v, %v", s.field1, s.dummy)
}
// container that can embedd any struct which implements Stringer interface
type StringerContainer struct {
Stringer
}
func main() {
// the following prints: This is Struct1
fmt.Println(StringerContainer{Struct1{"This is Struct1"}})
// the following prints: [This is Struct1], true
fmt.Println(StringerContainer{Struct2{[]string{"This", "is", "Struct1"}, true}})
// the following does not compile:
// cannot use "This is a type that does not implement Stringer" (type string)
// as type Stringer in field value:
// string does not implement Stringer (missing String method)
fmt.Println(StringerContainer{"This is a type that does not implement Stringer"})
}
The statement
type reverse struct {
Interface
}
enables you to initialize reverse with everything that implements the interface Interface. Example:
&reverse{sort.Intslice([]int{1,2,3})}
This way, all methods implemented by the embedded Interface value get populated to the outside while you are still able to override some of them in reverse, for example Less to reverse the sorting.
This is what actually happens when you use sort.Reverse. You can read about embedding in the struct section of the spec.
I will give my explanation too. The sort package defines an unexported type reverse, which is a struct, that embeds Interface.
type reverse struct {
// This embedded Interface permits Reverse to use the methods of
// another Interface implementation.
Interface
}
This permits Reverse to use the methods of another Interface implementation. This is the so called composition, which is a powerful feature of Go.
The Less method for reverse calls the Less method of the embedded Interface value, but with the indices flipped, reversing the order of the sort results.
// Less returns the opposite of the embedded implementation's Less method.
func (r reverse) Less(i, j int) bool {
return r.Interface.Less(j, i)
}
Len and Swap the other two methods of reverse, are implicitly provided by the original Interface value because it is an embedded field. The exported Reverse function returns an instance of the reverse type that contains the original Interface value.
// Reverse returns the reverse order for data.
func Reverse(data Interface) Interface {
return &reverse{data}
}
I find this feature very helpful when writing mocks in tests.
Here is such an example:
package main_test
import (
"fmt"
"testing"
)
// Item represents the entity retrieved from the store
// It's not relevant in this example
type Item struct {
First, Last string
}
// Store abstracts the DB store
type Store interface {
Create(string, string) (*Item, error)
GetByID(string) (*Item, error)
Update(*Item) error
HealthCheck() error
Close() error
}
// this is a mock implementing Store interface
type storeMock struct {
Store
// healthy is false by default
healthy bool
}
// HealthCheck is mocked function
func (s *storeMock) HealthCheck() error {
if !s.healthy {
return fmt.Errorf("mock error")
}
return nil
}
// IsHealthy is the tested function
func IsHealthy(s Store) bool {
return s.HealthCheck() == nil
}
func TestIsHealthy(t *testing.T) {
mock := &storeMock{}
if IsHealthy(mock) {
t.Errorf("IsHealthy should return false")
}
mock = &storeMock{healthy: true}
if !IsHealthy(mock) {
t.Errorf("IsHealthy should return true")
}
}
By using:
type storeMock struct {
Store
...
}
One doesn't need to mock all Store methods. Only HealthCheck can be mocked, since only this method is used in the TestIsHealthy test.
Below the result of the test command:
$ go test -run '^TestIsHealthy$' ./main_test.go
ok command-line-arguments 0.003s
A real world example of this use case one can find when testing the AWS SDK.
To make it even more obvious, here is the ugly alternative - the minimum one needs to implement to satisfy the Store interface:
type storeMock struct {
healthy bool
}
func (s *storeMock) Create(a, b string) (i *Item, err error) {
return
}
func (s *storeMock) GetByID(a string) (i *Item, err error) {
return
}
func (s *storeMock) Update(i *Item) (err error) {
return
}
// HealthCheck is mocked function
func (s *storeMock) HealthCheck() error {
if !s.healthy {
return fmt.Errorf("mock error")
}
return nil
}
func (s *storeMock) Close() (err error) {
return
}
Embedding interfaces in a struct allows for partially "overriding" methods from the embedded interfaces. This, in turn, allows for delegation from the embedding struct to the embedded interface implementation.
The following example is taken from this blog post.
Suppose we want to have a socket connection with some additional functionality, like counting the total number of bytes read from it. We can define the following struct:
type StatsConn struct {
net.Conn
BytesRead uint64
}
StatsConn now implements the net.Conn interface and can be used anywhere a net.Conn is expected. When a StatsConn is initialized with a proper value implementing net.Conn for the embedded field, it "inherits" all the methods of that value; the key insight is, though, that we can intercept any method we wish, leaving all the others intact. For our purpose in this example, we'd like to intercept the Read method and record the number of bytes read:
func (sc *StatsConn) Read(p []byte) (int, error) {
n, err := sc.Conn.Read(p)
sc.BytesRead += uint64(n)
return n, err
}
To users of StatsConn, this change is transparent; we can still call Read on it and it will do what we expect (due to delegating to sc.Conn.Read), but it will also do additional bookkeeping.
It's critical to initialize a StatsConn properly, otherwise the field retains its default value nil causing a runtime error: invalid memory address or nil pointer dereference; for example:
conn, err := net.Dial("tcp", u.Host+":80")
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
sconn := &StatsConn{conn, 0}
Here net.Dial returns a value that implements net.Conn, so we can use that to initialize the embedded field of StatsConn.
We can now pass our sconn to any function that expects a net.Conn argument, e.g:
resp, err := ioutil.ReadAll(sconn)
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
And later we can access its BytesRead field to get the total.
This is an example of wrapping an interface. We created a new type that implements an existing interface, but reused an embedded value to implement most of the functionality. We could implement this without embedding by having an explicit conn field like this:
type StatsConn struct {
conn net.Conn
BytesRead uint64
}
And then writing forwarding methods for each method in the net.Conn interface, e.g.:
func (sc *StatsConn) Close() error {
return sc.conn.Close()
}
However, the net.Conn interface has many methods. Writing forwarding methods for all of them is tedious and unnecessary. Embedding the interface gives us all these forwarding methods for free, and we can override just the ones we need.
I will try another, low level approach to this.
Given the reverse struct:
type reverse struct {
Interface
}
This beside others means, that reverse struct has a field reverse.Interface, and as a struct fields, it can be nil or have value of type Interface.
If it is not nil, then the fields from the Interface are promoted to the "root" = reverse struct. It might be eclipsed by fields defined directly on the reverse struct, but that is not our case.
When You do something like:
foo := reverse{}, you can println it via fmt.Printf("%+v", foo) and got
{Interface:<nil>}
When you do the
foo := reverse{someInterfaceInstance}
It is equivalent of:
foo := reverse{Interface: someInterfaceInstance}
It feels to me like You declare expectation, that implementation of Interface API should by injected into your struct reverse in runtime. And this api will be then promoted to the root of struct reverse.
At the same time, this still allow inconsistency, where You have reverse struct instance with reverse.Interface = < Nil>, You compile it and get the panic on runtime.
When we look back to the specifically example of the reverse in OP, I can see it as a pattern, how you can replace/extend behaviour of some instance / implementation kind of in runtime contrary to working with types more like in compile time when You do embedding of structs instead of interfaces.
Still, it confuses me a lot. Especially the state where the Interface is Nil :(.