Looping/iterate over the second level nested JSON in go lang

Question

Consider the following code:

package main

import (
"encoding/json"
"fmt"
"reflect"
)


func main() {  
    //Creating the maps for JSON
    m := map[string]interface{}{}

    //Parsing/Unmarshalling JSON encoding/json
    err := json.Unmarshal([]byte(input), &m)

    fmt.Println("\nReflect type of Parsing/Unmarshalling Error Object:\n",reflect.TypeOf(err))
    fmt.Println("\nParsing/Unmarshalling Error Object:\n",err)
    if err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }

    fmt.Println("\nParsed JSON is as follows:\n",m)
    fmt.Println("\nReflect type of parsed json object:\n", reflect.TypeOf(m))

    for firstLvlkey, firstLvlValue := range m { 
        fmt.Println("First Level Key:", firstLvlkey)
        fmt.Println("First Level Key reflect type of :", reflect.TypeOf(firstLvlkey))

        fmt.Println("First Level Value:", firstLvlValue)
        fmt.Println("First Level Value reflect type of :", reflect.TypeOf(firstLvlValue))
         // <===============================>
         //Here I want to iterate/loop over innerJSON1, InnerJSON2 then reach to level InnerInnerJSONArray - fld1 and fld2
         // <===============================>

    }
}

const input = `
{
    "outterJSON":{
        "innerJSON1":{
            "value1":10,
            "value2":22
            ,
            "InnerInnerArray": [ "test1" , "test2"],
            "InnerInnerJSONArray": [ {"fld1" : "val1"} , {"fld2" : "val2"} ]
            },
            "InnerJSON2":"NoneValue"
        }
    }
    `

I have some requirement like I want to read/get all the Key and value in String type for some processing adn I can't define the struct because I will be getting dynamic JSON input (e.g InnerInnerArray as a string then second level loop will give me index of array and process each JSON having key fld1 and val1).

I wish to iterate over every key/value pair contained within it, what is the most efficient way of going through the map?

Note: I am Newbie for Go-lang, your suggestion/improvement on question is also most welcome.

Answer 1

See this blog entry which thoroughly covers this subject, specifically the section Decoding arbitrary data. Using that you can do something like this: (playground example)

package main

import (
    "encoding/json"
    "fmt"    
)

func main() {
    // Creating the maps for JSON
    m := map[string]interface{}{}

    // Parsing/Unmarshalling JSON encoding/json
    err := json.Unmarshal([]byte(input), &m)

    if err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }
    parseMap(m)
}

func parseMap(aMap map[string]interface{}) {
    for key, val := range aMap {
        switch concreteVal := val.(type) {
        case map[string]interface{}:
            fmt.Println(key)
            parseMap(val.(map[string]interface{}))
        case []interface{}:
            fmt.Println(key)
            parseArray(val.([]interface{}))
        default:
            fmt.Println(key, ":", concreteVal)
        }
    }
}

func parseArray(anArray []interface{}) {
    for i, val := range anArray {
        switch concreteVal := val.(type) {
        case map[string]interface{}:
            fmt.Println("Index:", i)
            parseMap(val.(map[string]interface{}))
        case []interface{}:
            fmt.Println("Index:", i)
            parseArray(val.([]interface{}))
        default:
            fmt.Println("Index", i, ":", concreteVal)

        }
    }
}

const input = `
{
    "outterJSON": {
        "innerJSON1": {
            "value1": 10,
            "value2": 22,
            "InnerInnerArray": [ "test1" , "test2"],
            "InnerInnerJSONArray": [{"fld1" : "val1"} , {"fld2" : "val2"}]
        },
        "InnerJSON2":"NoneValue"
    }
}
`

This will print:

    //outterJSON
    //innerJSON1
    //InnerInnerJSONArray
    //Index: 0
    //fld1 : val1
    //Index: 1
    //fld2 : val2
    //value1 : 10
    //value2 : 22
    //InnerInnerArray
    //Index 0 : test1
    //Index 1 : test2
    //InnerJSON2 : NoneValue

The key thing is that you have to use type assertion when working with interface types. The type switch makes it easy to determine the type as needed. The code will recursively range through any nested array or map so you can add as many levels as you wish and get all your values.

Answer 2

There are related questions here and here (and possibly others).

There are some more sophisticated JSON parsing APIs that make your job easier. An example is stretchr/objx.

An example of using objx:

document, err := objx.FromJSON(json)
// TODO handle err
document.Get("path.to.field[0].you.want").Str()

This works when you really don't know what the JSON structure will be. However, if you do know the structure of your JSON input ahead of time, the preferred way is to describe it with structs and use the standard API for marshalling.