Golang unmarshaling JSON to protobuf generated structs - json

Question

I would like to reqeive a JSON response withing a client application and unmarshal this response into a struct. To ensure that the struct stays the same accross all client apps using this package, I would like to define the JSON responses as protobuf messages. I am having difficulties unmarshaling the JSON to the protobuf generated structs.
I have the following JSON data:
[
{
"name": "C1",
"type": "docker"
},
{
"name": "C2",
"type": "docker"
}
]
I have modeled my protobuf definitions like this:
syntax = "proto3";
package main;
message Container {
string name = 1;
string type = 2;
}
message Containers {
repeated Container containers = 1;
}
Using this pattern with structs normaly works, but for some reason using these proto definitions causes issues. The below code demonstrates a working and a non-working example. Although one of the versions work, I am unable to use this solution, since []*Container does not satisfy the proto.Message interface.
package main
import (
"encoding/json"
"fmt"
"strings"
"github.com/gogo/protobuf/jsonpb"
)
func working(data string) ([]*Container, error) {
var cs []*Container
return cs, json.Unmarshal([]byte(data), &cs)
}
func notWorking(data string) (*Containers, error) {
c := &Containers{}
jsm := jsonpb.Unmarshaler{}
if err := jsm.Unmarshal(strings.NewReader(data), c); err != nil {
return nil, err
}
return c, nil
}
func main() {
data := `
[
{
"name": "C1",
"type": "docker"
},
{
"name": "C2",
"type": "docker"
}
]`
w, err := working(data)
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
fmt.Print(w)
nw, err := notWorking(data)
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
fmt.Print(nw.Containers)
}
Running this gives the following output:
[name:"C1" type:"docker" name:"C2" type:"docker" ]
panic: json: cannot unmarshal array into Go value of type map[string]json.RawMessage
goroutine 1 [running]:
main.main()
/Users/example/go/src/github.com/example/example/main.go:46 +0x1ee
Process finished with exit code 2
Is there a way to unmarshal this JSON to Containers? Or alternatively, make []*Container to satisfy the proto.Message interface?

Answer 1

For the message Containers, i.e.
message Containers {
repeated Container containers = 1;
}
The correct JSON should look like:
{
"containers" : [
{
"name": "C1",
"type": "docker"
},
{
"name": "C2",
"type": "docker"
}
]
}
If you cannot change the JSON then you can utilize the func that you've created
func working(data string) ([]*Container, error) {
var cs []*Container
err := json.Unmarshal([]byte(data), &cs)
// handle the error here
return &Containers{
containers: cs,
}, nil
}

Answer 2

You should use NewDecoder to transfer the data to jsonDecoder and then traverse
the array.The code is this
func main() {
data := `
[
{
"name": "C1",
"type": "docker"
},
{
"name": "C2",
"type": "docker"
}
]`
jsonDecoder := json.NewDecoder(strings.NewReader(data))
_, err := jsonDecoder.Token()
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
var protoMessages []*pb.Container
for jsonDecoder.More() {
protoMessage := pb.Container{}
err := jsonpb.UnmarshalNext(jsonDecoder, &protoMessage)
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
protoMessages = append(protoMessages, &protoMessage)
}
fmt.Println("%s", protoMessages)
}