how to access nested Json key values in Golang - go

Question

Team,
new to Programming.
I have data available after unmarshaling the Json as shown below, which has nested Key values. flat key values I am able to access, how do I access nested key values.
Here is the byte slice data shown below after unmarshaling —>
tables:[map[name:basic__snatpool_members] map[name:net__snatpool_members] map[name:optimizations__hosts] map[columnNames:[name] name:pool__hosts rows:[map[row:[ry.hj.com]]]] traffic_group:/Common/traffic-group-1
Flat key values I am able to access by using the following code
p.TrafficGroup = m[“traffic_group”].(string)
here is the complete function
func dataToIapp(name string, d *schema.ResourceData) bigip.Iapp {
var p bigip.Iapp
var obj interface{}
jsonblob := []byte(d.Get("jsonfile").(string))
err := json.Unmarshal(jsonblob, &obj)
if err != nil {
fmt.Println("error", err)
}
m := obj.(map[string]interface{}) // Important: to access property
p.Name = m[“name”].(string)
p.Partition = m[“partition”].(string)
p.InheritedDevicegroup = m[“inherited_devicegroup”].(string)
}

Answer 1

Note: This may not work with your JSON structure. I inferred what it would be based on your question but without the actual structure, I cannot guarantee this to work without modification.
If you want to access them in a map, you need to assert that the interface pulled from the first map is actually a map. So you would need to do this:
tmp := m["tables"]
tables, ok := tmp.(map[string]string)
if !ok {
//error handling here
}
r.Name = tables["name"].(string)
But instead of accessing the unmarshaled JSON as a map[string]interface{}, why don't you create structs that match your JSON output?
type JSONRoot struct {
Name string `json:"name"`
Partition string `json:"partition"`
InheritedDevicegroup string `json:"inherited_devicegroup"`
Tables map[string]string `json:"tables"` //Ideally, this would be a map of structs
}
Then in your code:
func dataToIapp(name string, d *schema.ResourceData) bigip.Iapp {
var p bigip.Iapp
var obj &JSONRoot{}
jsonblob := []byte(d.Get("jsonfile").(string))
err := json.Unmarshal(jsonblob, &obj)
if err != nil {
fmt.Println("error", err)
}
p.Name = obj.Name
p.Partition = obj.Partition
p.InheritedDevicegroup = obj.InheritedDevicegroup
p.Name = obj.Tables["name"]
}

Answer 2

JSON objects are unmarshaled into map[string]interface{}, JSON arrays into []interface{}, same applies for nested objects/arrays.
So for example if a key/index maps to a nested object you need to type assert the value to map[string]interface{} and if the key/index maps to an array of objects you first need to assert the value to []interface{} and then each element to map[string]interface{}.
e.g. (for brevity this code is not guarding against panic)
tables := obj.(map[string]interface{})["tables"]
table1 := tables.([]interface{})[0]
name := table1.(map[string]interface{})["name"]
namestr := name.(string)
However, if it's the case that the json you are parsing is not dynamic but instead has a specific structure you should define a struct type that mirrors that structure and unmarshal the json into that.

Answer 3

All you have to do is repeatedly accessing the map via type-switching or assertion:
for _, table := range m["tables"] {
switch val := table {
case string:
fmt.Println("table is string")
case int:
fmt.Println("table is integer")
// This is your case, since JSON is unmarshaled to type []interface{} and map[string]interface{}
case []interface{}:
fmt.Println("table is a slice of interface{}")
for _, tb := range value {
if m, ok := tb.(map[string]interface{}); ok {
// Now it's accessible
fmt.Println(m["name"])
}
}
default:
fmt.Println("unknown type")
}
}
You might want to handle errors better than this.
To read more, check out my writing from a while ago https://medium.com/code-zen/dynamically-creating-instances-from-key-value-pair-map-and-json-in-go-feef83ab9db2.