Parsing HTTP Query String in Go
TL;DR
Code and examples can be found here: https://github.com/creack/httpreq
HTTP Server
Go provides a very easy way to create a http server:
package main
import (
"fmt"
"log"
"net/http"
)
func handler(w http.ResponseWriter, req *http.Request) {
fmt.Fprintf(w, "hello world\n")
}
func main() {
log.Fatal(http.ListenAndServe(":8080", http.HandlerFunc(handler)))
}
// curl http://localhost:8080But how to deal with data?
JSON body
A common way to pass data is via a json encoded body:
package main
import (
"encoding/json"
"fmt"
"log"
"net/http"
)
type query struct {
Name string
}
func handler(w http.ResponseWriter, req *http.Request) {
q := &query{}
if err := json.NewDecoder(req.Body).Decode(q); err != nil {
log.Printf("Error decoding body: %s", err)
return
}
fmt.Fprintf(w, "hello %s\n", q.Name)
}
func main() {
log.Fatal(http.ListenAndServe(":8080", http.HandlerFunc(handler)))
}
// curl -d '{"Name": "Guillaume"}' http://localhost:8080/Query String
But what if we want to pass data via query string? Typically, pagination and extra data.
Go, once again, expose everything necessary:
package main
import (
"fmt"
"log"
"net/http"
"strconv"
)
func handler(w http.ResponseWriter, req *http.Request) {
if err := req.ParseForm(); err != nil {
log.Printf("Error parsing form: %s", err)
return
}
l := req.Form.Get("limit")
limit, err := strconv.Atoi(l)
if err != nil {
log.Printf("Error parsing limit: %s", err)
return
}
dr := req.Form.Get("dryrun")
dryRun, _ := strconv.ParseBool(dr)
fmt.Fprintf(w, "hello world. Limit: %d, Dryrun: %t\n", limit, dryRun)
}
func main() {
log.Fatal(http.ListenAndServe(":8080", http.HandlerFunc(handler)))
}
// curl 'http://localhost:8080?limit=42&dryrun=true'As we can see, it works as expected, however, if we add more and more fields to our query string, the type conversions quickly become cumbersome.
A Better Query String management
We know how to convert any string to any type.
We know what data we are expecting.
We should be able to do something similar to json.Unmarshal.
Conversion functions
Let’s start with our previous example: we need an int and a bool. However, the strconv functions have different prototypes and return a value.
It would be interesting to write a small helper that will set a value instead of returning it. That way, we could instantiate our query object and pass the fields to be set. In order to do so, we need to use pointers.
package main
import (
"fmt"
"log"
"net/http"
"strconv"
)
type query struct {
Limit int
DryRun bool
}
func parseBool(s string, dest *bool) error {
// assume error = false
*dest, _ = strconv.ParseBool(s)
return nil
}
func parseInt(s string, dest *int) error {
n, err := strconv.Atoi(s)
if err != nil {
return err
}
*dest = n
return nil
}
func handler(w http.ResponseWriter, req *http.Request) {
if err := req.ParseForm(); err != nil {
log.Printf("Error parsing form: %s", err)
return
}
q := &query{}
if err := parseBool(req.Form.Get("dryrun"), &q.DryRun); err != nil {
log.Printf("Error parsing dryrun: %s", err)
return
}
if err := parseInt(req.Form.Get("limit"), &q.Limit); err != nil {
log.Printf("Error parsing limit: %s", err)
return
}
fmt.Fprintf(w, "hello world. Limit: %d, Dryrun: %t\n", q.Limit, q.DryRun)
}
func main() {
log.Fatal(http.ListenAndServe(":8080", http.HandlerFunc(handler)))
}Make it generic
It is a bit better, but still could be improved. What if we’d like to have this in a generic way?
As we can see, the conversion helpers have a very similar prototype, let’s make it the same using interface{}
package main
import (
"fmt"
"log"
"net/http"
"strconv"
)
type query struct {
Limit int
DryRun bool
}
func parseBool(s string, dest interface{}) error {
d, ok := dest.(*bool)
if !ok {
return fmt.Errorf("wrong type for parseBool: %T", dest)
}
// assume error = false
*d, _ = strconv.ParseBool(s)
return nil
}
func parseInt(s string, dest interface{}) error {
d, ok := dest.(*int)
if !ok {
return fmt.Errorf("wrong type for parseInt: %T", dest)
}
n, err := strconv.Atoi(s)
if err != nil {
return err
}
*d = n
return nil
}
func handler(w http.ResponseWriter, req *http.Request) {
if err := req.ParseForm(); err != nil {
log.Printf("Error parsing form: %s", err)
return
}
q := &query{}
if err := parseBool(req.Form.Get("dryrun"), &q.DryRun); err != nil {
log.Printf("Error parsing dryrun: %s", err)
return
}
if err := parseInt(req.Form.Get("limit"), &q.Limit); err != nil {
log.Printf("Error parsing limit: %s", err)
return
}
fmt.Fprintf(w, "hello world. Limit: %d, Dryrun: %t\n", q.Limit, q.DryRun)
}
func main() {
log.Fatal(http.ListenAndServe(":8080", http.HandlerFunc(handler)))
}Parsing object
Now that we have generic helpers, we can easily write a small object that will simplify the way we use it:
We need to store N parsing functions, so we’ll need a slice (or a map). In order to parse a field, we need the helper function, but we also need the original string and the destination.
We have our object!
type parsingMap []parsingMapElem
type parsingMapElem struct {
Field string
Fct func(string, interface{}) error
Dest interface{}
}Once our paringMap constructed, we then need to execute it, let’s write the loop logic:
func (p parsingMap) parse(form url.Values) error {
for _, elem := range p {
if err := elem.Fct(elem.Field, elem.Dest); err != nil {
return err
}
}
return nil
}We know can put everything together:
package main
import (
"fmt"
"log"
"net/http"
"net/url"
"strconv"
)
// conversion helpers
func parseBool(s string, dest interface{}) error {
d, ok := dest.(*bool)
if !ok {
return fmt.Errorf("wrong type for parseBool: %T", dest)
}
// assume error = false
*d, _ = strconv.ParseBool(s)
return nil
}
func parseInt(s string, dest interface{}) error {
d, ok := dest.(*int)
if !ok {
return fmt.Errorf("wrong type for parseInt: %T", dest)
}
n, err := strconv.Atoi(s)
if err != nil {
return err
}
*d = n
return nil
}
// parsingMap
type parsingMap []parsingMapElem
type parsingMapElem struct {
Field string
Fct func(string, interface{}) error
Dest interface{}
}
func (p parsingMap) parse(form url.Values) error {
for _, elem := range p {
if err := elem.Fct(elem.Field, elem.Dest); err != nil {
return err
}
}
return nil
}
// http server
type query struct {
Limit int
DryRun bool
}
func handler(w http.ResponseWriter, req *http.Request) {
if err := req.ParseForm(); err != nil {
log.Printf("Error parsing form: %s", err)
return
}
q := &query{}
if err := (parsingMap{
{"limit", parseInt, &q.Limit},
{"dryrun", parseBool, &q.DryRun},
}).parse(req.Form); err != nil {
log.Printf("Error parsing query string: %s", err)
return
}
fmt.Fprintf(w, "hello world. Limit: %d, Dryrun: %t\n", q.Limit, q.DryRun)
}
func main() {
log.Fatal(http.ListenAndServe(":8080", http.HandlerFunc(handler)))
}Going Further
I wrote this small library: https://github.com/creack/httpreq which provides more helpers and a cleaner API. It fits my current use case, but feel free to add any helper that can be missing :)
