Other ways of verifying reflect.Type for int and float64 - go

Question

In golang, a number in JSON message is always parsed into float64.
In order to detect if it is actually integer, I am using reflect.TypeOf() to check its type.
Unfortunately there is no constant that represents reflect.Type.
intType := reflect.TypeOf(0)
floatType := reflect.TypeOf(0.0)
myType := reflect.TypeOf(myVar)
if myType == intType {
// do something
}
Is there more elegant solution instead of using 0 or 0.0 to get reflect.Type?

Answer 1

You may also use the Value.Kind() or Type.Kind() method whose possible values are listed as constants in the reflect package, at the doc of the Kind type.
myType := reflect.TypeOf(myVar)
if k := myType.Kind(); k == reflect.Int {
fmt.Println("It's of type int")
} else if k == reflect.Float64 {
fmt.Println("It's of type float64")
}
You can also use it in a switch:
switch myType.Kind() {
case reflect.Int:
fmt.Println("int")
case reflect.Float64:
fmt.Println("float64")
default:
fmt.Println("Some other type")
}
Note that both reflect.Type and reflect.Value has a Kind() method, so you can use it if you start with reflect.ValueOf(myVar) and also if you start with reflect.TypeOf(myVar).

Answer 2

To check if interface is of a specific type you can use type assertion with two return values, the second return value is a boolean indicating if the variable is of the type specified. And unlike with a single return value, it will not panic if the variable is of a wrong type.
if v, ok := myVar.(int); ok {
// type assertion succeeded and v is myVar asserted to type int
} else {
// type assertion failed, myVar wasn't an int
}
If there's more types that you need to check then using a type switch is a good idea:
switch v := myVar.(type) {
case int:
// v has type int
case float64:
// v has type float64
default:
// myVar was something other than int or float64
}
Note however that neither of these actually solve your problem, because like you say, numbers in JSON documents are always parsed into float64s. So if myVar is a parsed JSON number, it will always have type of float64 instead of int.
To solve this, I suggest you use the UseNumber() method of the json.Decoder, which causes the decoder to parse numbers as type Number, instead of float64. Take a look at https://golang.org/pkg/encoding/json/#Number
// Assume myVar is a value decoded with json.Decoder with UseNumber() called
if n, ok := myVar.(json.Number); ok {
// myVar was a number, let's see if its float64 or int64
// Check for int64 first because floats can be parsed as ints but not the other way around
if v, err := n.Int64(); err != nil {
// The number was an integer, v has type of int64
}
if v, err := n.Float64(); err != nil {
// The number was a float, v has type of float64
}
} else {
// myVar wasn't a number at all
}