Need to insert struct directly in a PostgreSQL DB

Question

I am using go lang as my back end and postgreSQL as my database.I use "github.com/lib/pq" driver to connect with my database. I have a struct which have lot of field and it has some JSON inside it.

My struct looks like this

ApplyLeave1 struct {
        LeaveId           int       
        EmpId             string    
        SupervisorEmpId   string    
        LeaveDays         float64   
        MDays             float64   
        LeaveType         string    
        DayType           string    
        LeaveFrom         time.Time 
        LeaveTo           time.Time 
        AppliedDate       time.Time 
        LeaveStatus       string    
        ResultDate        time.Time     
        Certificate       []*CertificateInfo
    }

    CertificateInfo struct {
        Id           int64  
        FileName     string 
        FileType     string 
        FileLocation string 
    } 

The struct is big and have some json array inside it and my database schema is as same as the struct. As for as I researched the only way to insert is to use query and insert one by one from mystruct in to the database for example like this

var leave ApplyLeave1

    db.Exec("INSERT INTO TABLENAME(leaveid,empid,supervisorid,....) VALUES($1,$2,$3,$4,....)",leave.LeaveId,leave.EmpId,leave.SupervisorId,.....)

This is too long to write as my struct is very big.Is it possible to insert the whole struct at one time and please direct me how to insert a json array inside the database.Appreciate any help.Thanks

Updated information:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS apply_leave1 
(
    leaveid serial PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL ,
    empid varchar(10) NOT NULL REFERENCES employee(empid),
    leavedays double precision NOT NULL DEFAULT 0 ,
    mdays double precision NOT NULL DEFAULT 0 ,
    leavetype varchar(20) NOT NULL DEFAULT '' ,
    daytype text NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
    leavefrom timestamp with time zone NOT NULL,
    leaveto timestamp with time zone NOT NULL,
    applieddate timestamp with time zone NOT NULL,
    leavestatus varchar(15) NOT NULL DEFAULT ''  ,
    resultdate timestamp with time zone,
    certificatestatus bool NOT NULL DEFAULT FALSE,
    certificate json[])

Inside certificate(json[]) i will have all the fields of certificateinfo struct which you can see in the above struct information.Here i give certificate as json[]. I don't know which one is better json or json[] for the retrieval. I will be doing following operations and I don't if it is possible with the PostgreSQL.

• I need to store more than two certificate information per leave
• I would like to give certificate id as the auto increment and unique so it is easy for retrieval( i don`t know if its possible as my leave id is primary key and auto increment as well.
• I will searching the certificate info using leave id and certificate id.
• I need to retrieve only some fields of certificate info.For example only filename and file type using the leave id and certificate id.
• I need to update the certificate information of the particular certificate using its id.

Sorry for being so elaborate.Since i m new to use json in Postgres I have lots of doubts.So please bear my unawareness questions.Thanks...Appreciate your help.Thanks

Answer 1

You can use https://github.com/jmoiron/sqlx library. It has NamedExec function and you can pass variable to it. But first you need to define db tag for each of your struct field.

Simplified Example:

import (
    _ "github.com/lib/pq"
    "github.com/jmoiron/sqlx"
    "log"
)

type ApplyLeave1 struct {
    LeaveId           int       `db:"leaveid"`
    EmpId             string    `db:"empid"`
    SupervisorEmpId   string    `db:"supervisorid"`
}

db, err := sqlx.Connect("postgres", "user=foo dbname=bar sslmode=disable")
if err != nil {
    log.Fatalln(err)
}

query := `INSERT INTO TABLENAME(leaveid, empid, supervisorid) 
          VALUES(:leaveid, :empid, :supervisorid)`

var leave1 ApplyLeave1
_, err := db.NamedExec(query, leave1)
if err != nil {
    log.Fatalln(err)
}

Answer 2

Another approach is to use the github.com/knq/xo package which relies on code generation (go tool generate).

This package comes with a tool which takes the schema of your target database and creates a set of Go source code files containing types and code which map to the DB schema (and back).

Compared to github.com/jmoiron/sqlx, the pros and cons are as follows:

• sqlx is slower because it relies on run-time reflection over the types of the values you submit to it. xo generates static code which is as fast as you can theoretically get which can make some difference under heavy workloads.
• xo requires a separate generation step while sqlx doesn't.
• sqlx allows you to also use other tags on your types—so you may have, say, tags for json serialization as well. I'm not sure whether xo tries to preserve your changes done to what it generates.