Dynamically built formatting strings in Golang - go

I am attempting to create a formatting string dynamically in Go. The idea is that a map is created with the formatting types. Then a loop goes through them to output the various types.
The end result is to see how the formatting affects the output.
(I appreciate the example will produce the same output, but I would change f over time to other types)
Below is an example of this:
import (
"fmt"
"strings"
)
var formats = []string{"%f", "%v"}
var f float32 = 1 << 24
func main() {
for format := range formats {
// Generate formatting string here
parts := "%q => " + format + "\n"
fmt.Printf(parts, format, f)
}
}
The compiler is complaining about a int() conversion at the parts: line:
at line 11, file ch3/floating_point.go cannot convert "%q => " to type int
at line 11, file ch3/floating_point.go invalid operation: "%q => " + format` (mismatched types string and int)
I have attempted joining strings, but no luck:
parts:= strings.Join([]string{"%q =>",format,"\n"), " ")
fmt.Printf(parts,format,f)
Also fmt.Fprintf isn't helping either:
for format := range formats {
// Generate formatting string here
parts := fmt.Fprintf("%q => " + format, format, f)
fmt.Println(parts)
}

The issue is in your for format := range formats construct. Keep in mind that range formats will return two values: the actual value from the slice *and its index (which is the first value). So "%q => " + format + "\n" will actually try to concatenate "%s => " with the numeric iteration index.
If you want to iterate over the values contained in the slice, use the following loop for that:
for _, format := range formats {
// ...
}

See golang For and blank identifier
If you're looping over an array, slice, string, or map, or reading
from a channel, a range clause can manage the loop.
for key, value := range oldMap {
newMap[key] = value
}
Right way to range with array
for index, value := range formats {
if you want to skip index do
for _, value := range formats {

Related

Alternative to using strings.Builder in conjunction with fmt.Sprintf

I am learning about the strings package in Go and I am trying to build up a simple error message.
I read that strings.Builder is a very eficient way to join strings, and that fmt.Sprintf lets me do some string interpolation.
With that said, I want to understand the best way to join a lot of strings together. For example here is what I create:
func generateValidationErrorMessage(err error) string {
errors := []string{}
for _, err := range err.(validator.ValidationErrors) {
var b strings.Builder
b.WriteString(fmt.Sprintf("[%s] failed validation [%s]", err.Field(), err.ActualTag()))
if err.Param() != "" {
b.WriteString(fmt.Sprintf("[%s]", err.Param()))
}
errors = append(errors, b.String())
}
return strings.Join(errors, "; ")
}
Is there another/better way to do this? Is using s1 + s2 considered worse?
You can use fmt to print directly to the strings.Builder. Use fmt.Fprintf(&builder, "format string", args).
The fmt functions beginning with Fprint..., meaning "file print", allow you to print to an io.Writer such as a os.File or strings.Builder.
Also, rather than using multiple builders and joining all their strings at the end, just use a single builder and keep writing to it. If you want to add a separator, you can do so easily within the loop:
var builder strings.Builder
for i, v := range values {
if i > 0 {
// unless this is the first item, add the separator before it.
fmt.Fprint(&builder, "; ")
}
fmt.Fprintf(&builder, "some format %v", v)
}
var output = builder.String()

Golang map[string]float where float is getting overwirtten instead of adding to the existing value present for the key

I have a string like so
00:01:07,400-234-090 00:05:01, 701-080-080 00:05:00, 400-234-090
where the on the right side is the phone number and on the left is the duration of the call in hh:mm:ss format. I am trying to put this in a map[string]float64 by splitting the string first on "," and the split the left side on ":". Then make a Duration from the duration of the call and convert in to minutes. It works fine till this.
Now I am trying to put this in a map, I expected that if the key which is the phone number on the right is already present in the map then it will just add the float64 value to the existing value of the key. However, that is not the case, it seems to be having the same key twice in the map.
Here is my code:
phoneBill := `00:01:07,400-234-090
00:05:01, 701-080-080
00:05:00, 400-234-090`
callLog := strings.Split(phoneBill, "\n")
mapDetails := make(map[string]float64)
for _, v := range callLog {
callDetails := strings.Split(strings.TrimSpace(v), ",")
timeDetails := strings.Split(strings.TrimSpace(callDetails[0]), ":")
durationString := strings.TrimSpace(timeDetails[0]) + "h" + strings.TrimSpace(timeDetails[1]) + "m" + strings.TrimSpace(timeDetails[2]) + "s"
t, _ := time.ParseDuration(durationString)
total := t.Minutes()
fmt.Printf("phone number is: %v \n", callDetails[1])
fmt.Printf("duration of call in minutes is %v \n", total)
if v, found := mapDetails[callDetails[1]]; found {
total += v
fmt.Println("total is :v", total)
}
mapDetails[(callDetails[1])] = total
}
fmt.Println("Values in map are: %v", mapDetails)
https://go.dev/play/p/fLcEDbgQ-7q
Fix by trimming spaces on the duration and the number. The current code does not handle spaces before or after the comma.
i := strings.Index(v, ",")
if i < 0 {
log.Fatal("bad line", v)
}
dur := strings.TrimSpace(v[:i])
num := strings.TrimSpace(v[i+1:])
Taking advantage of the fact that maps return the zero value for missing keys, the code to update the map can be simplified to the following.
mapDetails[num] += total
Run the code on the playground.
When debugging code that parses strings, it's helpful to make whitespace visible by printing with %q. The bug in the original program is more visible with:
fmt.Printf("phone number is: %q \n", callDetails[1])

How to format a string containing a dynamic number of elements?

I am trying to format a string based on the elements received from the function calling it. This number of elements can varyfrom one to many.
Is there a way to call fmt.Sprintf with a variable number of elements. Something along the lines of:
receivedElements := []interface{}{"some","values"}
formattedString := fmt.Sprintf("Received elements: ...%s", receivedElements...)
Output: Received elements: some values
You can use https://golang.org/pkg/strings/#Repeat like that:
args := []interface{}{"some", "values"}
fmt.Println(fmt.Sprintf("values: " + strings.Repeat("%s ", len(args)), args...))
https://play.golang.org/p/75J6i2fSCaM
Or if you don't want to have last space in the line, you can create slice of %s and then use https://golang.org/pkg/strings/#Join
args := []interface{}{"some", "values"}
ph := make([]string, len(args))
for i, _ := range args {
ph[i] = "%s"
}
fmt.Println(fmt.Sprintf("values: " + strings.Join(ph, ", "), args...))
https://play.golang.org/p/QNZT-i9Rrgn

Parsing a time with the format HHMMSS00

I'm working with some data from multiple sources and one of these sources is a Sage ERP system.
I am trying to reference two files in Sage in particular, an audit date and audit time (AUDTDATE and AUDTTIME).
I need to parse this and store it as a DATETIME in a Microsoft SQL Server database.
Currently, I am just trying to figure out the best way to parse this.
An example of what the data might look like is below:
+----------+----------+
| AUDTDATE | AUDTTIME |
+----------+----------+
| 20170228 | 5013756 |
+----------+----------+
AUDTDATE is a yyyymmdd format and the AUDTTIME is HHMMSS00.
So I tried the below as a test:
func main() {
value := "20170228 5013756"
layout := "20060102 15040500"
t, _ := time.Parse(layout, value)
fmt.Println(t)
}
This doesn't work, it just returns 0001-01-01 00:00:00 +0000 UTC when run.
If I change the time to this 050137 and the layout to 150405 then this works fine:
func main() {
value := "20170228 050137"
layout := "20060102 150405"
t, _ := time.Parse(layout, value)
fmt.Println(t)
}
One way that I can think of to deal with this is to strip the milliseconds off from the end and then check the length and add a zero to the beginning if it needs one.
This seems like a pretty ugly solution and would involve doing something like this:
func main() {
date := "20170228"
timeString := "5013756"
value := date + prepareTime(timeString)
layout := "20060102150405"
t, _ := time.Parse(layout, value)
fmt.Println(t)
}
func prepareTime(time string) string {
if len(time) == 7 {
time = "0" + time
}
return time[:6]
}
Is there a way to do this without going through the above? Perhaps natively with the time package?
Assuming that you're pulling back 2 separate values from the DB, you can use fmt.Sprintf to 0 pad timeString. Combining it with the date string, you can use the following:
value := fmt.Sprintf("%s %08s", date, timeString)[:15]
In your code:
func main() {
date := "20170228"
timeString := "5013756"
value := fmt.Sprintf("%s %08s", date, timeString)[:15]
layout := "20060102 150405"
t, _ := time.Parse(layout, value)
fmt.Println(t)
}
Results:
2017-02-28 05:01:37 +0000 UTC
This approach is useful because it will also correctly pad any shorter value of time, e.g. 13756 will be converted to 00013756.
The fmt.Sprintf function is useful to format arguments into a string using the formatting you desire as specified by a format string and a list of arguments (...interface{}). The format string tells the function how to render the arguments.
This format string uses two items of note:
String verb (%s): The format string uses a variety of verbs that are used for string substitutions. %s is specifically to render a string or a slice. Other popular verbs include %d for base 10 integer and %f for float with a complete list in the docs. The %v verb is very useful can also be used here as it will render an argument's default value.
0 left padding: To 0 left pad an argument, use 0 followed by a length number in the verb after the %. This will prepended the argument with a maximum number of 0s specified in the length number. For example, %08s will render a string with up to 8 prepended zeros. This means a string "" will be "00000000" while a string "1234567" will result in "01234567". If the string is longer than the length, nothing will be prepended.
From the documentation:
%s the uninterpreted bytes of the string or slice
0 pad with leading zeros rather than spaces;
for numbers, this moves the padding after the sign
More detailed is available in the documentation: https://golang.org/pkg/fmt/

Writing a struct's fields and values of different types to a file in Go

I'm writing a simple program that takes in input from a form, populates an instance of a struct with the received data and the writes this received data to a file.
I'm a bit stuck at the moment with figuring out the best way to iterate over the populated struct and write its contents to the file.
The struct in question contains 3 different types of fields (ints, strings, []strings).
I can iterate over them but I am unable to get their actual type.
Inspecting my posted code below with print statements reveals that each of their types is coming back as structs rather than the aforementioned string, int etc.
The desired output format is be plain text.
For example:
field_1="value_1"
field_2=10
field_3=["a", "b", "c"]
Anyone have any ideas? Perhaps I'm going about this the wrong way entirely?
func (c *Config) writeConfigToFile(file *os.File) {
listVal := reflect.ValueOf(c)
element := listVal.Elem()
for i := 0; i < element.NumField(); i++ {
field := element.Field(i)
myType := reflect.TypeOf(field)
if myType.Kind() == reflect.Int {
file.Write(field.Bytes())
} else {
file.WriteString(field.String())
}
}
}
Instead of using the Bytes method on reflect.Value which does not work as you initially intended, you can use either the strconv package or the fmt to format you fields.
Here's an example using fmt:
var s string
switch fi.Kind() {
case reflect.String:
s = fmt.Sprintf("%q", fi.String())
case reflect.Int:
s = fmt.Sprintf("%d", fi.Int())
case reflect.Slice:
if fi.Type().Elem().Kind() != reflect.String {
continue
}
s = "["
for j := 0; j < fi.Len(); j++ {
s = fmt.Sprintf("%s%q, ", s, fi.Index(i).String())
}
s = strings.TrimRight(s, ", ") + "]"
default:
continue
}
sf := rv.Type().Field(i)
if _, err := fmt.Fprintf(file, "%s=%s\n", sf.Name, s); err!= nil {
panic(err)
}
Playground: https://play.golang.org/p/KQF3CicVzA
Why not use the built-in gob package to store your struct values?
I use it to store different structures, one per line, in files. During decoding, you can test the type conversion or provide a hint in a wrapper - whichever is faster for your given use case.
You'd treat each line as a buffer when Encoding and Decoding when reading back the line. You can even gzip/zlib/compress, encrypt/decrypt, etc the stream in real-time.
No point in re-inventing the wheel when you have a polished and armorall'd wheel already at your disposal.

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