Notes on Go Structure Tags

Go has a feature to create a user-defined type with struct. Go also allows the program to specify meta-information with structure field.
This meta-information is called Tags. A tag usually helps in packaging/unpacking a user-defined type structure.

  package main

  import (
      "encoding/json"
      "fmt"
  )

  type Test struct {
      // json tags indicate the key name to use in json data
      Name    string `json:"myname"`
      Country string `json:"region"`
  }

  func main() {
      // The order of json need not match the order of structure fields.
      p := map[string]string{"region": "earth", "myname": "hello"}

      marshalled, err := json.Marshal(p)
      fmt.Println(marshalled, err)

      // get the var back from marshalled data
      var m Test
      json.Unmarshal(marshalled, &m)
      fmt.Printf("name=%v\n", m.Name)
      fmt.Printf("name=%v\n", m.Country)
  }

Why should I use json tags

• The benefit of json tags is the flexibility to marshal with either a JSON or a struct.
• JSON input for marshaling is convenient and flexible with elements ordering.

Reference

• https://www.restapiexample.com/golang-tutorial/marshal-and-unmarshal-of-struct-data-using-golang/