How to call a generic function in Go by passing a Type via reflection

Question content

I have a Go application that receives different JSON responses for the same API, so I tried to write a custom unmarshaller, It will try to process every possible JSON response until it finds the correct one.

To do this, I have created a generic function to unmarshal JSON, and I want to call it using the type obtained from reflection.

For example:

package main

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

type JSONHandler struct{}

func (handler *JSONHandler) Unmarshal(data []byte) error {
    t := reflect.TypeOf(*handler)

    for i := 0; i < t.NumField(); i++ {
        fieldType := t.Field(i)

        fmt.Printf("Trying to unmarshal: %s\n", fieldType.Name)
        result, err := unmarshal[fieldType](data) // fieldType (variable of type reflect.StructField) is not a typecompiler (NotAType)

        if err == nil {
            fmt.Printf("result: %s\n", result)
            break
        }
    }

    return nil
}

func unmarshal[T interface{}](data []byte) (*T, error) {
    obj := new(T)

    reader := bytes.NewReader(data)
    decoder := json.NewDecoder(reader)
    decoder.DisallowUnknownFields()

    err := decoder.Decode(obj)
    if err != nil {
        return nil, err
    }
    return obj, nil
}

type User struct {
    Username *string `json:"username,omitempty"`
    Password *string `json:"password,omitempty"`
}

type UserError struct {
    Error *string `json:"error,omitempty"`
    Code  *int    `json:"code,omitempty"`
}

type UserOrError struct {
    User      *User
    UserError *UserError
    JSONHandler
}

var userJson = `{ "username": "[email&#160;protected]", "password": "password" }`

func main() {
    user := new(UserOrError)
    result := user.Unmarshal([]byte(userJson)) // { User: something, UserError: nil }
}

However, the Go compiler gave me this error: fieldType (variable of type reflect.StructField) is not a type compiler (NotAType).

Is there a way to pass reflection parameters to a generic function?

Correct answer

This question is beyond the scope of Go's general functionality.

Use reflect.New to create a value given the reflect.Type of that value.

Go has no inheritance. The Unmarshal method in the question operates on types that have no fields. Fixed by passing the "handler" to a normal function.

// Unmarshal unmarshals data to each field type in handler
// and returns the first successful result. The handler argument
// must be a pointer to a struct.
func Unmarshal(handler any, data []byte) (any, error) {
    t := reflect.TypeOf(handler).Elem()
    for i := 0; i < t.NumField(); i++ {
        fieldType := t.Field(i)
        v := reflect.New(fieldType.Type)
        decoder := json.NewDecoder(bytes.NewReader(data))
        decoder.DisallowUnknownFields()
        err := decoder.Decode(v.Interface())
        if err == nil {
            return v.Elem().Interface(), err
        }
    }
    return nil, errors.New("no matching type")
}

Use the Marshal function like this:

type UserOrError struct {
    User      *User
    UserError *UserError
}

var userJson = `{ "username": "<a href="https://www.php.cn/link/89fee0513b6668e555959f5dc23238e9" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="0e646166604e6b636f6762206d6163">[email&#160;protected]</a>", "password": "password" }`

result, err := Unmarshal(&UserOrError{}, []byte(userJson)) // { User: something, UserError: nil }
fmt.Printf("err=%v, result=%#v\n", err, result)

https://www.php.cn/link/c76e4b2fa54f8506719a5c0dc14c2eb9

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