[json] Unmarshaling nested JSON objects

There are a few questions on the topic but none of them seem to cover my case, thus I'm creating a new one.

I have JSON like the following:

{"foo":{ "bar": "1", "baz": "2" }, "more": "text"}

Is there a way to unmarshal the nested bar property and assign it directly to a struct property without creating a nested struct?

The solution I'm adopting right now is the following:

type Foo struct {
    More String `json:"more"`
    Foo  struct {
        Bar string `json:"bar"`
        Baz string `json:"baz"`
    } `json:"foo"`
    //  FooBar  string `json:"foo.bar"`
}

This is a simplified version, please ignore the verbosity. As you can see, I'd like to be able to parse and assign the value to

//  FooBar  string `json:"foo.bar"`

I've seen people using a map, but that's not my case. I basically don't care about the content of foo (which is a large object), except for a few specific elements.

What is the correct approach in this case? I'm not looking for weird hacks, thus if this is the way to go, I'm fine with that.

Like what Volker mentioned, nested structs is the way to go. But if you really do not want nested structs, you can override the UnmarshalJSON func.

https://play.golang.org/p/dqn5UdqFfJt

type A struct {
    FooBar string // takes foo.bar
    FooBaz string // takes foo.baz
    More   string 
}

func (a *A) UnmarshalJSON(b []byte) error {

    var f interface{}
    json.Unmarshal(b, &f)

    m := f.(map[string]interface{})

    foomap := m["foo"]
    v := foomap.(map[string]interface{})

    a.FooBar = v["bar"].(string)
    a.FooBaz = v["baz"].(string)
    a.More = m["more"].(string)

    return nil
}

Please ignore the fact that I'm not returning a proper error. I left that out for simplicity.

UPDATE: Correctly retrieving "more" value.

I was working on something like this. But is working only with structures generated from proto. https://github.com/flowup-labs/grpc-utils

in your proto

message Msg {
  Firstname string = 1 [(gogoproto.jsontag) = "name.firstname"];
  PseudoFirstname string = 2 [(gogoproto.jsontag) = "lastname"];
  EmbedMsg = 3  [(gogoproto.nullable) = false, (gogoproto.embed) = true];
  Lastname string = 4 [(gogoproto.jsontag) = "name.lastname"];
  Inside string  = 5 [(gogoproto.jsontag) = "name.inside.a.b.c"];
}

message EmbedMsg{
   Opt1 string = 1 [(gogoproto.jsontag) = "opt1"];
}

Then your output will be

{
"lastname": "Three",
"name": {
    "firstname": "One",
    "inside": {
        "a": {
            "b": {
                "c": "goo"
            }
        }
    },
    "lastname": "Two"
},
"opt1": "var"
}

Combining map and struct allow unmarshaling nested JSON objects where the key is dynamic. => map[string]

For example: stock.json

{
  "MU": {
    "symbol": "MU",
    "title": "micro semiconductor",
    "share": 400,
    "purchase_price": 60.5,
    "target_price": 70
  },
  "LSCC":{
    "symbol": "LSCC",
    "title": "lattice semiconductor",
    "share": 200,
    "purchase_price": 20,
    "target_price": 30
  }
}

Go application

package main

import (
    "encoding/json"
    "fmt"
    "io/ioutil"
    "log"
    "os"
)

type Stock struct {
    Symbol        string  `json:"symbol"`
    Title         string  `json:"title"`
    Share         int     `json:"share"`
    PurchasePrice float64 `json:"purchase_price"`
    TargetPrice   float64 `json:"target_price"`
}
type Account map[string]Stock

func main() {
    raw, err := ioutil.ReadFile("stock.json")
    if err != nil {
        fmt.Println(err.Error())
        os.Exit(1)
    }
    var account Account
    log.Println(account)
}

The dynamic key in the hash is handle a string, and the nested object is represented by a struct.

This is an example of how to unmarshall JSON responses from the Safebrowsing v4 API sbserver proxy server: https://play.golang.org/p/4rGB5da0Lt

// this example shows how to unmarshall JSON requests from the Safebrowsing v4 sbserver
package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "log"
    "encoding/json"
)

// response from sbserver POST request
type Results struct {
    Matches []Match     
}

// nested within sbserver response
type Match struct {
    ThreatType string 
    PlatformType string 
    ThreatEntryType string 
    Threat struct {
        URL string
    }
}

func main() {
    fmt.Println("Hello, playground")

    // sample POST request
    //   curl -X POST -H 'Content-Type: application/json' 
    // -d '{"threatInfo": {"threatEntries": [{"url": "http://testsafebrowsing.appspot.com/apiv4/ANY_PLATFORM/MALWARE/URL/"}]}}' 
    // http://127.0.0.1:8080/v4/threatMatches:find

    // sample JSON response
    jsonResponse := `{"matches":[{"threatType":"MALWARE","platformType":"ANY_PLATFORM","threatEntryType":"URL","threat":{"url":"http://testsafebrowsing.appspot.com/apiv4/ANY_PLATFORM/MALWARE/URL/"}}]}`

    res := &Results{}
    err := json.Unmarshal([]byte(jsonResponse), res)
        if(err!=nil) {
            log.Fatal(err)
        }

    fmt.Printf("%v\n",res)
    fmt.Printf("\tThreat Type: %s\n",res.Matches[0].ThreatType)
    fmt.Printf("\tPlatform Type: %s\n",res.Matches[0].PlatformType)
    fmt.Printf("\tThreat Entry Type: %s\n",res.Matches[0].ThreatEntryType)
    fmt.Printf("\tURL: %s\n",res.Matches[0].Threat.URL)
}

What about anonymous fields? I'm not sure if that will constitute a "nested struct" but it's cleaner than having a nested struct declaration. What if you want to reuse the nested element elsewhere?

type NestedElement struct{
    someNumber int `json:"number"`
    someString string `json:"string"`
}

type BaseElement struct {
    NestedElement `json:"bar"`
}

Assign the values of nested json to struct until you know the underlying type of json keys:-

package main

import (
    "encoding/json"
    "fmt"
)

// Object
type Object struct {
    Foo map[string]map[string]string `json:"foo"`
    More string `json:"more"`
}

func main(){
    someJSONString := []byte(`{"foo":{ "bar": "1", "baz": "2" }, "more": "text"}`)
    var obj Object
    err := json.Unmarshal(someJSONString, &obj)
    if err != nil{
        fmt.Println(err)
    }
    fmt.Println("jsonObj", obj)
}

Yes. With gjson all you have to do now is:

bar := gjson.Get(json, "foo.bar")

bar could be a struct property if you like. Also, no maps.