Using encoding/json (CustomMarshalJSON) in Go

Posted by GoDoc
Public (Editable by Users)

Package json implements encoding and decoding of JSON as defined in RFC 7159. The mapping between JSON and Go values is described in the documentation for the Marshal and Unmarshal functions.

Go
Edit 
package main

import (
	"encoding/json"
	"fmt"
	"log"
	"strings"
)

type Animal int

const (
	Unknown Animal = iota
	Gopher
	Zebra
)

func (a *Animal) UnmarshalJSON(b []byte) error {
	var s string
	if err := json.Unmarshal(b, &s); err != nil {
		return err
	}
	switch strings.ToLower(s) {
	default:
		*a = Unknown
	case "gopher":
		*a = Gopher
	case "zebra":
		*a = Zebra
	}

	return nil
}

func (a Animal) MarshalJSON() ([]byte, error) {
	var s string
	switch a {
	default:
		s = "unknown"
	case Gopher:
		s = "gopher"
	case Zebra:
		s = "zebra"
	}

	return json.Marshal(s)
}

func main() {
	blob := `["gopher","armadillo","zebra","unknown","gopher","bee","gopher","zebra"]`
	var zoo []Animal
	if err := json.Unmarshal([]byte(blob), &zoo); err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}

	census := make(map[Animal]int)
	for _, animal := range zoo {
		census[animal] += 1
	}

	fmt.Printf("Zoo Census:\n* Gophers: %d\n* Zebras:  %d\n* Unknown: %d\n",
		census[Gopher], census[Zebra], census[Unknown])

}