Parsing deeply nested json in Go is a bit challenging due to the fact that the language doesn’t provide many helpers to do so. If you do that in Ruby or Python it’s pretty straight forward running some like this in Python j = json.load(jsonstring) or in Ruby j = JSON.load(jsonstring).
In go generally you have to prefine your structs and run through an Unmarshal function which means that most of the times you need to know ahead of time what the nest level and structure of your target json is to parse it. For example:
https://play.golang.org/p/Q4IHjBVSfY
package main
import (
"encoding/json"
"fmt"
"log"
)
var data = []byte(`
{
"client": {
"id": "2212fw",
"name": "Papupapa Hernandez",
"email": "papupapa@gmail.com",
"phones": ["554-223-2311", "332-232-2123"]
}
}
`)
type Client struct {
Id string `json:"id"`
Name string `json:"name"`
Email string `json:"email"`
Phones []string `json:"phones"`
}
type Info struct {
Key Client `json:"client"`
}
func main() {
var info Info
if err := json.Unmarshal(data, &info); err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
fmt.Printf("%+v\n", info)
}
When you have deeply nested JSON this becomes a pain in the butt. Enter gjson, with this library thanks to @tidwall we can parse n-level nested JSON that has hashes and arrays. This came in handy when parsing for example the following JSON:
{
"i$tems": {
"it$em": [
{
"batt$ers": {
"ba$tter": [
{
"i$d": "1001",
"t$ype": "Regular"
},
{
"i$d": "1002",
"type": "Chocolate"
},
{
"i$d": "1003",
"t$ype": "Blueberry"
},
{
"i$d": "1004",
"t$ype": "Devil's Food"
}
]
},
"$id": "0001",
"$name": "Cake",
"$ppu": 0.55,
"$topping": [
{
"i$d": "5001",
"t$ype": "None"
},
{
"i$d": "5002",
"t$ype": "Glazed"
},
{
"i$d": "5005",
"t$ype": "Sugar"
},
{
"i$d": "5007",
"t$ype": "Powdered Sugar"
},
{
"i$d": "5006",
"t$ype": "Chocolate with Sprinkles"
},
{
"i$d": "5003",
"t$ype": "Chocolate"
},
{
"i$d": "5004",
"t$ype": "Maple"
}
],
"ty$pe": "donut"
}
]
}
}
You can have something like this:
package main
import (
"encoding/json"
"fmt"
"github.com/tidwall/gjson"
"io/ioutil"
"os"
)
func main() {
file, e := ioutil.ReadFile("./nested.json")
if e != nil {
fmt.Printf("File error: %v\n", e)
os.Exit(1)
}
myJson := string(file)
m, ok := gjson.Parse(myJson).Value().(map[string]interface{})
if !ok {
fmt.Println("Error")
}
jsonBytes, err := json.Marshal(m)
if err != nil {
fmt.Println(err)
}
fmt.Println(string(jsonBytes))
}
So the gjson library allows you to Marshall to a bunch of empty interface{} types (at compile type) that at run time the basically become the ‘maps’ and ‘slices’ in a JSON structure.
Running the above code outputs:
{"i$tems":{"it$em":[{"$id":"0001","$name":"Cake","$ppu":0.55,"$topping":[{"i$d":"5001","t$ype":"None"},{"i$d":"5002","t$ype":"Glazed"},{"i$d":"5005","t$ype":"Sugar"},{"i$d":"5007","t$ype":"Powdered Sugar"},{"i$d":"5006","t$ype":"Chocolate with Sprinkles"},{"i$d":"5003","t$ype":"Chocolate"},{"i$d":"5004","t$ype":"Maple"}],"batt$ers":{"ba$tter":[{"i$d":"1001","t$ype":"Regular"},{"i$d":"1002","type":"Chocolate"},{"i$d":"1003","t$ype":"Blueberry"},{"i$d":"1004","t$ype":"Devil's Food"}]},"ty$pe":"donut"}]}}
The issue now is how to access all these structures recursively. Enter the reflect package in Go. This package allows you to do things similar to in Ruby like variable.is_a?(Hash) or variable.is_a?(Array)
To solve the original problem with the JSON above I had to write a little bit of code. So the problem is remove the $ character from all the keys in the nested JSON structure. So now I have:
package main
import (
"encoding/json"
"fmt"
"github.com/tidwall/gjson"
"io/ioutil"
"os"
"reflect"
"regexp"
"strings"
)
func iterate(data interface{}) interface{} {
if reflect.ValueOf(data).Kind() == reflect.Slice {
d := reflect.ValueOf(data)
tmpData := make([]interface{}, d.Len())
returnSlice := make([]interface{}, d.Len())
for i := 0; i < d.Len(); i++ {
tmpData[i] = d.Index(i).Interface()
}
for i, v := range tmpData {
returnSlice[i] = iterate(v)
}
return returnSlice
} else if reflect.ValueOf(data).Kind() == reflect.Map {
d := reflect.ValueOf(data)
tmpData := make(map[string]interface{})
for _, k := range d.MapKeys() {
match, _ := regexp.MatchString("$", k.String())
typeOfValue := reflect.TypeOf(d.MapIndex(k).Interface()).Kind()
if match {
new_key := strings.Replace(k.String(), "$", "", -1)
if typeOfValue == reflect.Map || typeOfValue == reflect.Slice {
tmpData[new_key] = iterate(d.MapIndex(k).Interface())
} else {
tmpData[new_key] = d.MapIndex(k).Interface()
}
} else {
fmt.Println("debug")
if typeOfValue == reflect.Map || typeOfValue == reflect.Slice {
tmpData[k.String()] = iterate(d.MapIndex(k).Interface())
} else {
tmpData[k.String()] = d.MapIndex(k).Interface()
}
}
}
return tmpData
}
return data
}
func main() {
file, e := ioutil.ReadFile("./nested.json")
if e != nil {
fmt.Printf("File error: %v\n", e)
os.Exit(1)
}
myJson := string(file)
m, ok := gjson.Parse(myJson).Value().(map[string]interface{})
if !ok {
fmt.Println("Error")
}
newM := iterate(m)
jsonBytes, err := json.Marshal(newM)
if err != nil {
fmt.Println(err)
}
fmt.Println(string(jsonBytes))
}
which outputs (in prettified json):
{
"items": {
"item": [
{
"batters": {
"batter": [
{
"id": "1001",
"type": "Regular"
},
{
"id": "1002",
"type": "Chocolate"
},
{
"id": "1003",
"type": "Blueberry"
},
{
"id": "1004",
"type": "Devil's Food"
}
]
},
"id": "0001",
"name": "Cake",
"ppu": 0.55,
"topping": [
{
"id": "5001",
"type": "None"
},
{
"id": "5002",
"type": "Glazed"
},
{
"id": "5005",
"type": "Sugar"
},
{
"id": "5007",
"type": "Powdered Sugar"
},
{
"id": "5006",
"type": "Chocolate with Sprinkles"
},
{
"id": "5003",
"type": "Chocolate"
},
{
"id": "5004",
"type": "Maple"
}
],
"type": "donut"
}
]
}
}
So there we have it. We were able to parse nested JSON using gjson and then modify the keys for the structure so that none of them have the $ sign.
Full code is available here: https://github.com/raravena80/carabobo/blob/master/jsonkeys/jsonkeys.go