jsonapi

A serailizer/deserializer for json payloads that comply to the jsonapi.org spec in go.

Background

You are working in your Go web application and you have a struct that is similar to how your datbase table looks. You need to send and receive json payloads that adhere jsonapi spec. Once you realized that your json needed to take on this special form, you went down the path of creating more structs to be able to serialize and deserialize jsonapi payloads. Then more models required these additional structure. Ugh! In comes jsonapi. You can keep your model structs as is and use struct field tags to indicate to jsonapi how you want your response built or your request deserialzied. What about my relationships? jsonapi supports relationships out of the box and will even side load them in your response into an "included" array--that contains associated objects.

Introduction

jsonapi uses StructField tags to annotate the structs fields that you already have and use in your app and then reads and writes jsonapi.org output based on the instructions you give the library in your jsonapi tags. Let's take an example. In your app, you most likely have structs that look similar to these,

type Blog struct {
	Id            int       `json:"id"`
	Title         string    `json:"title"`
	Posts         []*Post   `json:"posts"`
	CurrentPost   *Post     `json:"current_post"`
	CurrentPostId int       `json:"current_post_id"`
	CreatedAt     time.Time `json:"created_at"`
	ViewCount     int       `json:"view_count"`
}

type Post struct {
	Id       int        `json:"id"`
	BlogId   int        `json:"blog_id"`
	Title    string     `json:"title"`
	Body     string     `json:"body"`
	Comments []*Comment `json:"comments"`
}

type Comment struct {
	Id     int    `json:"id"`
	PostId int    `json:"post_id"`
	Body   string `json:"body"`
}

These structs may or may not resemble the layout of your database. But these are the ones that you want to use right? You wouldn't want to use structs like those that jsonapi sends because it is very hard to get at all of your data easily.

Tags Example

You want jsonapi.org style inputs and ouputs but you want to keep your structs that you already have. Use the jsonapi lib with the "jsonapi" tag on your struct fields along with its Marshal and Unmarshal methods to construct and read your responses and replies, respectively. Here's an example of the structs above using jsonapi tags,

type Blog struct {
	Id            int       `jsonapi:"primary,blogs"`
	Title         string    `jsonapi:"attr,title"`
	Posts         []*Post   `jsonapi:"relation,posts"`
	CurrentPost   *Post     `jsonapi:"relation,current_post"`
	CurrentPostId int       `jsonapi:"attr,current_post_id"`
	CreatedAt     time.Time `jsonapi:"attr,created_at"`
	ViewCount     int       `jsonapi:"attr,view_count"`
}

type Post struct {
	Id       int        `jsonapi:"primary,posts"`
	BlogId   int        `jsonapi:"attr,blog_id"`
	Title    string     `jsonapi:"attr,title"`
	Body     string     `jsonapi:"attr,body"`
	Comments []*Comment `jsonapi:"relation,comments"`
}

type Comment struct {
	Id     int    `jsonapi:"primary,comments"`
	PostId int    `jsonapi:"attr,post_id"`
	Body   string `jsonapi:"attr,body"`
}

Handler Examples

Now you have your structs prepared to be seralized or materialized. What about the rest?

Create

func CreateBlog(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
	blog := new(Blog)

	if err := jsonapi.UnmarshalPayload(r.Body, blog); err != nil {
		http.Error(w, err.Error(), 500)
		return
	}

	// ...do stuff with your blog...

	w.WriteHeader(201)
	w.Header().Set("Content-Type", "application/vnd.api+json")

	if err := jsonapi.MarshalOnePayload(w, blog); err != nil {
		http.Error(w, err.Error(), 500)
	}
}