I've got a struct with a []uint8 member and I'm writing it with json.Marshal. Trouble is, it's interpreting the uint8s as chars and it outputs a string rather than an array of numbers.
I can get this to work if it's a []int, but I don't want to have to allocate and copy over the items if I can avoid it. Can I?
According to the docs, a []byte will be encoded as a Base64 string.
"Array and slice values encode as JSON arrays, except that []byte encodes as a base64-encoded string, and a nil slice encodes as the null JSON object."
So I think that you may need to make your struct implement the Marshaler interface by implementing your own MarshalJSON method that makes a more desirable JSON array encoding out of your []uint8.
Take this example:
import "fmt"
import "encoding/json"
import "strings"
type Test struct {
Name string
Array []uint8
}
func (t *Test) MarshalJSON() ([]byte, error) {
var array string
if t.Array == nil {
array = "null"
} else {
array = strings.Join(strings.Fields(fmt.Sprintf("%d", t.Array)), ",")
}
jsonResult := fmt.Sprintf(`{"Name":%q,"Array":%s}`, t.Name, array)
return []byte(jsonResult), nil
}
func main() {
t := &Test{"Go", []uint8{'h', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o'}}
m, err := json.Marshal(t)
if err != nil {
fmt.Println(err)
}
fmt.Printf("%s", m) // {"Name":"Go","Array":[104,101,108,108,111]}
}
http://play.golang.org/p/Tip59Z9gqs
Or maybe a better idea would be to make a new type that has []uint8 as its underlying type, make that type a Marshaler, and use that type in your struct.
import "fmt"
import "encoding/json"
import "strings"
type JSONableSlice []uint8
func (u JSONableSlice) MarshalJSON() ([]byte, error) {
var result string
if u == nil {
result = "null"
} else {
result = strings.Join(strings.Fields(fmt.Sprintf("%d", u)), ",")
}
return []byte(result), nil
}
type Test struct {
Name string
Array JSONableSlice
}
func main() {
t := &Test{"Go", []uint8{'h', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o'}}
m, err := json.Marshal(t)
if err != nil {
fmt.Println(err)
}
fmt.Printf("%s", m) // {"Name":"Go","Array":[104,101,108,108,111]}
}