Exported and Unexported fields in Go Language - go

I have a function in Go, the return value of which I hope to encode using gob. The return value is a struct pointer. However even though I do understand what exported variables are, I am not quite sure how to get it working.
Here is what my function is like
fun loadXYZ(root *structABC) *structABC{
const once = "stateData.bin"
rd, errr := ioutil.ReadFile(once)
if errr!=nil{
//Do some computation and store in "root"
buf := &bytes.Buffer{}
errr = gob.NewEncoder(buf).Encode(root)
if errr != nil {
panic(errr)
}
errr = ioutil.WriteFile(once, buf.Bytes(), 0666)
if errr != nil {
panic(errr)
}
return root
}
var d *structABC
errr = gob.NewDecoder(bytes.NewReader(rd)).Decode(&d)
if errr != nil {
panic(errr)
}
return d
}
This is the error I get
panic: gob: type main.stateNode has no exported fields
I know why the error is occurring. But can someone help me solve it?

In go, fields and variables that start with an Uppercase letter are "Exported", and are visible to other packages. Fields that start with a lowercase letter are "unexported", and are only visible inside their own package.
The encoding/gob package depends on reflection to encode values, and can only see exported struct fields.
In order to make things encodable, capitalize the first letter of each field name in your stateNode struct that you want to be saved.

Exported field it's a filed which name started with capitalized char like:
type stateNode struct {
ImExported string // Exported
butImNot string // unexported
}

Related

In Go, how to verify that the data type of an input from the user matches the data type of the code?

I am new to Go.
Currently, I am creating a menu in Go and I want to verify that the data type of the input from the user matches the data type of the variable defined in the code. Part of my code looks like this so far:
package main
import (
"fmt"
"reflect"
)
var option int // The variable is declared outside of the main().
func general_menu() {
fmt.Println(".......................General Menu..................................")
fmt.Println()
fmt.Println("Calculator..........................................................1")
fmt.Println("Linear algebra package..............................................2")
fmt.Println("Language change.....................................................9")
fmt.Println("Exit...............................................................10")
fmt.Println()
fmt.Println("Choose an option from the menu.")
fmt.Println()
fmt.Scan(&option)
fmt.Println()
if (option != 1 && option != 2 && option != 9 && option != 10)||reflect.TypeOf(option)!=int{
fmt.Println("Wrong option input. Please, try again.")
fmt.Println()
general_menu()
}
}
I know that this doens't work this way, and I know that "int" can not be used as part of an "if" condirion.
I would kindly appreciate any suggestions on the proper way to solve this problem.
Thanks.
Edit: I have added more of my code as kindly suggested by the contributors.
Edit: Based on the answer provided, I have tried to implement a function, but the syntax is still not correct:
func check_integers_are_not_string(x int) bool {
change := strconv.Itoa(x)
if change != nil {
return true
} else {
return false
}
} // This function returns a true boolean value if conversion from int to string was possible, meaning that the entered value is a string.
Just read the documentation of Scan - https://pkg.go.dev/fmt#Scan
It returns the number of successfully read arguments and an error. The input is mapped in your case to a variable of type int, so if a user inputs a string it will return 0 and an error. Otherwise it will return 1 and the error should be nil. You can check for that.
n, err := fmt.Scan(&option)
if n != 1 || err != nil {
// print error and go back
}
One common way to do it is to try to make the conversion and see if it succeeds.
optionInt, err := strconv.Atoi(option) // Assuming option is of type string
if err != nil {
log.Printf("String '%s' cannot be converted to type int: %v", option, err)
os.Exit(1)
}
log.Printf(`optionInt is %d.`, optionInt)
This is a good approach if you are only interested in conversion to one type. Otherwise things can quickly get more involved, utilizing constructs such as lexers and parsers, but that would warrant more information on what you are trying to accomplish.

Yaml file to struct parsing (translation) in Golang

I'm trying to build a translation feature for my webapp. There are multiple packages in my app. Each package(directory) contains a translation folder and yaml files inside. But I have a problem with parsing and assign it to messages.
en.yaml
msgLogin : "You've login successfully"
msgProducts:
0: "You don't have any product."
1: "You have %d product."
2: "You have %d products."
errLogin: "Wrong password or username"
my code:
type TranslationEntry struct {
Key struct {
Value interface{}
}
}
func parseTranslations(dir string) {
files, _ := ioutil.ReadDir(dir)
for _, f := range files {
yamlFile, _ := ioutil.ReadFile(dir + "/" + f.Name())
var data translation
if err := yaml.Unmarshal(yamlFile, &data); err != nil {
return nil, err
}
lang := strings.Split(f.Name(), ".")[0]
switch msg := data.Key.Value.(type) {
case string:
message.SetString(language.Make(lang), cast.ToString(data.Key), cast.ToString(data.Key.Value))
case map[int]string:
message.Set(language.Make(lang), cast.ToString(data.Key),
plural.Selectf(1, "%d",
"=0", cast.ToString(data.Key.Value["0"]),
"=1", cast.ToString(data.Key.Value["1"]),
"=2", cast.ToString(data.Key.Value["2"]),
))
}
translations[lang] = &dictionary{Data: data}
}
}
I'm totally lost about how to design my struct or parse yaml file.
Thank you in advanced
If you're using the YAML library I think you're using (https://godoc.org/gopkg.in/yaml.v2), to make a Golang struct which can use Unmarshal to map from the YAML file in your post you can do this:
type TranslationEntry struct {
MsgLogin string `yaml:"msgLogin"`
MsgProducts map[int]string `yaml:"msgProducts"`
ErrLogin string `yaml:"errLogin"`
}
The things inside the `` after the field declarations are called tags. They're the way field names are usually specified when mapping between some datatype and a Golang struct (in my case usually I map a struct to JSON, but I've also done YAML). If you're using the same YAML parser I mentioned above, this is how it works.
Basically the text inside the double quotes is the YAML key to which your struct field will be mapped. In the above code the only difference between the YAML key name and the struct field name is capitalization, but here is an example using totally different names:
type ExampleStruct struct {
MyAbcField string `yaml:"abc"`
}
This will set the value of MyAbcField to "my data" when using Unmarshal with ExampleStruct and the following YAML:
abc: "my data"
This allows you to design a Golang struct which matches however you decide to structure your YAML.
Here's my above code in Go Playground: https://play.golang.org/p/Q9FvNsw-BOx
Now, if you are unable to fix a structure for your YAML files, you can also parse into nested maps. You can do this by passing a variable of type interface{} (empty interface) to Unmarshal instead of a struct. However, this requires a lot of boilerplate because you will need to do type assertions to access your data. Thus I recommend using a fixed structure instead unless you absolutely can't avoid it.
Here's an example where I parse the YAML you posted and then get the msgLogin field:
var data interface{}
if err := yaml.Unmarshal([]byte(yamlFile), &data); err != nil {
// handle error
}
// a type assertion that data is a map is needed in order to get keys or iterate
topLevel, ok := data.(map[interface{}]interface{})
if !ok {
// handle error
}
fmt.Println(topLevel["msgLogin"])
And here's the Go Playground of my struct example changed to use parsing into a nested map instead: https://play.golang.org/p/ERBjClSazkz

how to insert an array in sqlite?

I have struct like:
type Foo struct {
bars []string
}
Since sqlite3 doesn't have array data type supported, can we store []string as string and while retrieving return as slice of string? Was trying to implement like below, but getting error because of type mismatch. What need to be done here?
Edit: I have changed the code and look like working
type strArray []string
func (strarr StrArray) Value() (driver.Value, error) {
if strarr != nil {
resarr := strings.Join(strarr, "")
return resarr, nil
}
return nil, nil
}
Complementary to database/sql/driver.Valuer you need also to implement database/sql.Scanner for reading your type from the database.
When you think of how to implement it, it's obvious that in Valuer you should Join your slice with some delimiter character/string (not occurring in the data of course) to be able to Split it back when retrieving.
Assuming that such delimiter would be ; (my wild guess), the code for reading would look like:
func (a *strArray) Scan(value interface{}) error {
if value == nil {
return nil // case when value from the db was NULL
}
s, ok := value.(string)
if !ok {
return fmt.Errorf("failed to cast value to string: %v", value)
}
*a = strings.Split(s, ";")
return nil
}
For writing, you'd need to use strings.Join(strarr, ";") in Valuer implementation.
Other less-trivial implementation would require marshaling your slice and encoding the resulting bytes as string somehow (base32/64? json?). In any case you need to not loose the information what are distinct slice elements when saving them to the database.

Accessing struct field by a given string that contains the full path

A validator package gives me back strings like this if a given field in my struct doesn't pass the validation:
myString := "Stream.Fields[0].Name"
How can i use this string to gain access to the struct field specified in it? I need to reference it somehow but i have no idea where to start with.
I'm beginning to learn Go and already came across the "Reflect" package which seems to be able to do that but i don't know what to look for or how to formulate the right question.
You need to use reflect package for this.
Here I have written a sample function which given an instance and string key like Stream.Details.Name will return the Name from the field Details of instance Stream
This works for structs without array or map operators , just the . operator . You may extend this to support the [] aswell
func getValueFromStruct(keyWithDots string, object interface{}) (interface{}, error) {
keySlice := strings.Split(keyWithDots, ".")
v := reflect.ValueOf(object)
// iterate through field names ,ignore the first name as it might be the current instance name
// you can make it recursive also if want to support types like slice,map etc along with struct
for _, key := range keySlice[1:] {
for v.Kind() == reflect.Ptr {
v = v.Elem()
}
// we only accept structs
if v.Kind() != reflect.Struct {
return nil, fmt.Errorf("only accepts structs; got %T", v)
}
v = v.FieldByName(key)
}
return v, nil
}
Here is golang play link : https://play.golang.org/p/NIRdGONZBhP
This library also exists, which might do what you want:
https://github.com/mcuadros/go-lookup
The lib uses the reflect package under the hood.

Using empty interfaces in go

I am trying to understand the code that is used at my company. I am new to go lang, and I have already gone through the tutorial on their official website. However, I am having a hard time wrapping my head around empty interfaces, i.e. interface{}. From various sources online, I figured out that the empty interface can hold any type. But, I am having a hard time figuring out the codebase, especially some of the functions. I will not be posting the entire thing here, but just the minimal functions in which it has been used. Please bear with me!
Function (I am trying to understand):
func (this *RequestHandler) CreateAppHandler(rw http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) *foo.ResponseError {
var data *views.Data = &views.Data{Attributes: &domain.Application{}}
var request *views.Request = &views.Request{Data: data}
if err := json.NewDecoder(r.Body).Decode(request); err != nil {
logrus.Error(err)
return foo.NewResponsePropogateError(foo.STATUS_400, err)
}
requestApp := request.Data.Attributes.(*domain.Application)
requestApp.CreatedBy = user
Setting some context, RequestHandler is a struct defined in the same package as this code. domain and views are seperate packages. Application is a struct in the package domain. The following two structs are part of the package views:
type Data struct {
Id string `json:"id"`
Type string `json:"type"`
Attributes interface{} `json:"attributes"`
}
type Request struct {
Data *Data `json:"data"`
}
The following are part of the package json:
func NewDecoder(r io.Reader) *Decoder {
return &Decoder{r: r}
}
func (dec *Decoder) Decode(v interface{}) error {
if dec.err != nil {
return dec.err
}
if err := dec.tokenPrepareForDecode(); err != nil {
return err
}
if !dec.tokenValueAllowed() {
return &SyntaxError{msg: "not at beginning of value"}
}
// Read whole value into buffer.
n, err := dec.readValue()
if err != nil {
return err
}
dec.d.init(dec.buf[dec.scanp : dec.scanp+n])
dec.scanp += n
// Don't save err from unmarshal into dec.err:
// the connection is still usable since we read a complete JSON
// object from it before the error happened.
err = dec.d.unmarshal(v)
// fixup token streaming state
dec.tokenValueEnd()
return err
}
type Decoder struct {
r io.Reader
buf []byte
d decodeState
scanp int // start of unread data in buf
scan scanner
err error
tokenState int
tokenStack []int
}
Now, I understood that, in the struct Data in package views, Application is being set as a type for the empty interface. After that, a pointer to Request in the same package is created which points to the variable data.
I have the following doubts:
What exactly does this keyword mean in Go? What is the purpose of writing this * RequestHandler?
Initialization of a structure in Go can be done while assigning it to a variable by specifying the values of all it's members. However, here, for the struct Data, only the empty interface value is assigned and the values for the other two fields are not assigned?
What is the advantage of assigning the Application struct to an empty interface? Does it mean I can use the struct members using the interface variable directly?
Can someone help me figure out the meaning of this statement? json.NewDecoder(r.Body).Decode(request)?
While I know this is too much, but I am having a hard time figuring out the meaning of interfaces in Go. Please help!
this is not a keyword in go; any variable name can be used there. That is called the receiver. A function declared in that way must be called like thing.func(params), where "thing" is an expression of the type of the receiver. Within the function, the receiver is set to the value of thing.
A struct literal does not have to contain values for all the fields (or any of them). Any fields not explicitly set will have the zero value for their types.
As you said, an empty interface can take on a value of any type. To use a value of type interface{}, you would use type assertion or a type switch to determine the type of the value, or you could use reflection to use the value without having to have code for the specific type.
What specifically about that statement do you not understand? json is the name of a package in which the function NewDecoder is declared. That function is called, and then the Decode function (which is implemented by the type of the return value of NewDecoder) is called on that return value.
You may want to take a look at Effective Go and/or The Go Programming Language Specification for more information.

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