Removing fields from struct or hiding them in JSON Response

Question

I\'ve created an API in Go that, upon being called, performs a query, creates an instance of a struct, and then encodes that struct as JSON before sending back to the caller

Answer 1

Take three ingredients:

1. The reflect package to loop over all the fields of a struct.

2. An if statement to pick up the fields you want to Marshal, and

3. The encoding/json package to Marshal the fields of your liking.

Preparation:

1. Blend them in a good proportion. Use reflect.TypeOf(your_struct).Field(i).Name() to get a name of the ith field of your_struct.

2. Use reflect.ValueOf(your_struct).Field(i) to get a type Value representation of an ith field of your_struct.

3. Use fieldValue.Interface() to retrieve the actual value (upcasted to type interface{}) of the fieldValue of type Value (note the bracket use - the Interface() method produces interface{}

If you luckily manage not to burn any transistors or circuit-breakers in the process you should get something like this:

func MarshalOnlyFields(structa interface{},
    includeFields map[string]bool) (jsona []byte, status error) {
    value := reflect.ValueOf(structa)
    typa := reflect.TypeOf(structa)
    size := value.NumField()
    jsona = append(jsona, '{')
    for i := 0; i < size; i++ {
        structValue := value.Field(i)
        var fieldName string = typa.Field(i).Name
        if marshalledField, marshalStatus := json.Marshal((structValue).Interface()); marshalStatus != nil {
            return []byte{}, marshalStatus
        } else {
            if includeFields[fieldName] {
                jsona = append(jsona, '"')
                jsona = append(jsona, []byte(fieldName)...)
                jsona = append(jsona, '"')
                jsona = append(jsona, ':')
                jsona = append(jsona, (marshalledField)...)
                if i+1 != len(includeFields) {
                    jsona = append(jsona, ',')
                }
            }
        }
    }
    jsona = append(jsona, '}')
    return
}

Serving:

serve with an arbitrary struct and a map[string]bool of fields you want to include, for example

type magic struct {
    Magic1 int
    Magic2 string
    Magic3 [2]int
}

func main() {
    var magic = magic{0, "tusia", [2]int{0, 1}}
    if json, status := MarshalOnlyFields(magic, map[string]bool{"Magic1": true}); status != nil {
        println("error")
    } else {
        fmt.Println(string(json))
    }

}

Bon Appetit!