Parse unstructured json in golang - json

Question

Is there any solution to parse an unstructured json(text) data?
below is a sample response of a web requst that i want to parse and access data (the inner list)
res,err := http.Get("url_of_server")
[[
{
"id": "1",
"text": "sample text",
"user": {
"user_id": "1",
"username": "user1"
},
"created_at_utc": "2022-12-20T16:38:06+00:00",
"status": "Active"
},
{
"id": "2",
"text": "sample text",
"user": {
"user_id": "2",
"username": "user2"
},
"created_at_utc": "2022-12-01T10:15:00+00:00",
"status": "Active"
}
],
"{"code": "hsdvnkvuahudvhafdlfv",
"is_updated": true}",
null
]
what i want to get is:
[
{
"id": "1",
"text": "sample text",
"user": {
"user_id": "1",
"username": "user1"
},
"created_at_utc": "2022-12-20T16:38:06+00:00",
"status": "Active"
},
{
"id": "2",
"text": "sample text",
"user": {
"user_id": "2",
"username": "user2"
},
"created_at_utc": "2022-12-01T10:15:00+00:00",
"status": "Active"
}
]
in python it is possible by easily using res.json()[0]
I have tried using json.Unmarshal() to a map and also struct but does not work,
i don't know how to get rid of this part of response:
"{"code": "hsdvnkvuahudvhafdlfv",
"is_updated": true}",
null

Answer 1

Declare a type for the items:
type Item struct {
ID string `json:"id"`
Text string `json:"text"`
User struct {
UserID string `json:"user_id"`
Username string `json:"username"`
} `json:"user"`
CreatedAtUtc time.Time `json:"created_at_utc"`
Status string `json:"status"`
}
Declare a slice of the items:
var items []Item
Declare a slice representing the entire JSON thing. The first element is the items.
var v = []any{&items}
Unmarshal to v. The items slice will have the values that you are looking for. The second and third elements of v will contain the values you want to ignore.
err := json.Unmarshal(data, &v)
Run the code in the GoLang PlayGround.

Answer 2

Go's standard JSON library is not as flexible as others when it comes to dealing with unexpected or uncontrolled input.
A great alternative is tidwall's gjson.
Example code with gjson:
package main
import (
"fmt"
"github.com/tidwall/gjson"
)
const textInput = `[[
{
"id": "1",
"text": "sample text",
"user": {
"user_id": "1",
"username": "user1"
},
"created_at_utc": "2022-12-20T16:38:06+00:00",
"status": "Active"
},
{
"id": "2",
"text": "sample text",
"user": {
"user_id": "2",
"username": "user2"
},
"created_at_utc": "2022-12-01T10:15:00+00:00",
"status": "Active"
}
],
"{"code": "hsdvnkvuahudvhafdlfv",
"is_updated": true}",
null
]`
func main() {
jsonBody := gjson.Parse(textInput)
fmt.Println(jsonBody.Get("0"))
}