Go structure for unmarshalling a JSON array - json

Question

So I have some JSON (courtesy of the PetFinder API) that has a JSON array "pet". I want to unmarshal from it, using the "encoding/json" package, a slice of pet structs. What would this kind of structure look like? I can't find any examples of how the unmarshall function handles JSON arrays.
Here's what I was planning to do once I had a proper struct:
pfetch := new(PetsFetcher) // where PetsFetcher is the struct im asking for
err := json.Unmarshal(body, &pfetch)
And here's the json that is in body (in the form of a slice of ascii bytes):
{
"petfinder": {
"lastOffset": {
"$t": 5
},
"pets": {
"pet": [
{
"options": {
"option": [
{
"$t": "altered"
},
{
"$t": "hasShots"
},
{
"$t": "housebroken"
}
]
},
"breeds": {
"breed": {
"$t": "Dachshund"
}
}
},
{
"options": {
"option": {
"$t": "hasShots"
}
},
"breeds": {
"breed": {
"$t": "American Staffordshire Terrier"
}
},
"shelterPetId": {
"$t": "13-0164"
},
"status": {
"$t": "A"
},
"name": {
"$t": "HAUS"
}
}
]
}
}
}
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I really have no idea what those $t attributes are doing there in your JSON, so let’s answer your question with a simple example. To unmarshal this JSON:
{
"name": "something",
"options": [
{
"key": "a",
"value": "b"
},
{
"key": "c",
"value": "d"
},
{
"key": "e",
"value": "f"
},
]
}
You need this Data type in Go:
type Option struct {
Key string
Value string
}
type Data struct {
Name string
Options []Option
}

Answer 2

You can unmarshal a javascript array into a slice. The marhsal/unmarshalling rules are described under Marshal in the json package.
To unmarshal keys that look like "$t", you'll have to annotate the struct that it'll unpack into.
For example:
type Option struct {
Property string `json:"$t,omitempty"`
}
It may be that the $t that appear are a mistake, and are supposed to be keys in a dictionary.