Handling JSON Post Request in Go

Question

Please use json.Decoder instead of json.Unmarshal.

func test(rw http.ResponseWriter, req *http.Request) {
    decoder := json.NewDecoder(req.Body)
    var t test_struct
    err := decoder.Decode(&t)
    if err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }
    log.Println(t.Test)
}

You need to read from req.Body. The ParseForm method is reading from the req.Body and then parsing it in standard HTTP encoded format. What you want is to read the body and parse it in JSON format.

Here's your code updated.

package main

import (
    "encoding/json"
    "log"
    "net/http"
    "io/ioutil"
)

type test_struct struct {
    Test string
}

func test(rw http.ResponseWriter, req *http.Request) {
    body, err := ioutil.ReadAll(req.Body)
    if err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }
    log.Println(string(body))
    var t test_struct
    err = json.Unmarshal(body, &t)
    if err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }
    log.Println(t.Test)
}

func main() {
    http.HandleFunc("/test", test)
    log.Fatal(http.ListenAndServe(":8082", nil))
}

I was driving myself crazy with this exact problem. My JSON Marshaller and Unmarshaller were not populating my Go struct. Then I found the solution at https://eager.io/blog/go-and-json:

"As with all structs in Go, it’s important to remember that only fields with a capital first letter are visible to external programs like the JSON Marshaller."

After that, my Marshaller and Unmarshaller worked perfectly!

There are two reasons why json.Decoder should be preferred over json.Unmarshal - that are not addressed in the most popular answer from 2013:

1. February 2018, go 1.10 introduced a new method json.Decoder.DisallowUnknownFields() which addresses the concern of detecting unwanted JSON-input
2. req.Body is already an io.Reader. Reading its entire contents and then performing json.Unmarshal wastes resources if the stream was, say a 10MB block of invalid JSON. Parsing the request body, with json.Decoder, as it streams in would trigger an early parse error if invalid JSON was encountered. Processing I/O streams in realtime is the preferred go-way.

---

Addressing some of the user comments about detecting bad user input:

To enforce mandatory fields, and other sanitation checks, try:

d := json.NewDecoder(req.Body)
d.DisallowUnknownFields() // catch unwanted fields

// anonymous struct type: handy for one-time use
t := struct {
    Test *string `json:"test"` // pointer so we can test for field absence
}{}

err := d.Decode(&t)
if err != nil {
    // bad JSON or unrecognized json field
    http.Error(rw, err.Error(), http.StatusBadRequest)
    return
}

if t.Test == nil {
    http.Error(rw, "missing field 'test' from JSON object", http.StatusBadRequest)
    return
}

// optional extra check
if d.More() {
    http.Error(rw, "extraneous data after JSON object", http.StatusBadRequest)
    return
}

// got the input we expected: no more, no less
log.Println(*t.Test)

Playground

Typical output:

$ curl -X POST -d "{}" http://localhost:8082/strict_test

expected json field 'test'

$ curl -X POST -d "{\"Test\":\"maybe?\",\"Unwanted\":\"1\"}" http://localhost:8082/strict_test

json: unknown field "Unwanted"

$ curl -X POST -d "{\"Test\":\"oops\"}g4rB4g3@#$%^&*" http://localhost:8082/strict_test

extraneous data after JSON

$ curl -X POST -d "{\"Test\":\"Works\"}" http://localhost:8082/strict_test 

log: 2019/03/07 16:03:13 Works