How we can know what kind of struct is on byte array - go

Question

I'm looking for some solution to know whats the struct type of the hash. It is possible to do that without try an error method (casting to a specific type and see the cast is successfully)?
Please check the code:
import (
"bytes"
"encoding/binary"
"fmt"
"reflect"
)
type T struct {
A int64
B float64
}
type D struct {
A int64
B float64
C string
}
func main() {
// Create a struct and write it.
t := T{A: 0xEEFFEEFF, B: 3.14}
buf := &bytes.Buffer{}
err := binary.Write(buf, binary.BigEndian, t)
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
fmt.Println(buf.Bytes())
out := getType(buf)
fmt.Println(out)
}
func getType(v interface{})(r string){
fmt.Println(reflect.TypeOf(v))
switch t := v.(type) {
case T:
return "Is type T"
case D:
return "Is type D"
default:
_ = t
return "unknown"
}
}

Answer 1

Since the encoding/binary package does not write out type information, it is not possible to tell what type was written / serialized.
And you're in a worse position that you might originally think: even trying to decode into a value of different type might succeed without errors, so there isn't even a reliable way to tell the type.
For example if you serialize a value of this type:
type T struct {
A int64
B float64
}
You can read it into a value of this type:
type T2 struct {
B float64
A int64
}
It will give no errors because the size of both structs is the same, but obviously you will get different numbers in the fields.
You are in a little better position if you use encoding/gob, as the gob package does transmit type information, and encoding a value of type T and then decoding it into a value of type T2 would work: order of fields does not matter, and extra or missing fields also do not cause trouble.
See this example:
// Create a struct and write it.
t := T{A: 0xEEFFEEFF, B: 3.14}
fmt.Println("Encoding:", t)
buf := &bytes.Buffer{}
fmt.Println(binary.Write(buf, binary.BigEndian, t))
fmt.Println(buf.Bytes())
fmt.Println(gob.NewEncoder(buf).Encode(t))
t2 := T2{}
fmt.Println(binary.Read(buf, binary.BigEndian, &t2))
fmt.Println(t2)
t2 = T2{}
fmt.Println(gob.NewDecoder(buf).Decode(&t2))
fmt.Println(t2)
Output (try it on the Go Playground):
Encoding: {4009750271 3.14}
<nil>
[0 0 0 0 238 255 238 255 64 9 30 184 81 235 133 31]
<nil>
<nil>
{1.9810798573e-314 4614253070214989087}
<nil>
{3.14 4009750271}
If you want to be able to detect the type before reading it, you have to take care of it yourself: you have to transmit type information (e.g. name of the type). Or even better, use a serialization method that already does this, for example Google's protocol buffers, and here is the Go implementation for it: github.com/golang/protobuf.