Custom Error Marshaling to JSON in Go

In this post I want to go through an example of data marshaling in the Go language. The example starts with this snippet:

package main

import (
  "encoding/json"
  "errors"
  "fmt"
)

type AModel struct {
  Name   string
  Errors []error
}

func main() {
  amodel := AModel{"Mr Model",
    []error{errors.New("e1"), errors.New("e2")}}

  data, marshalError := json.Marshal(amodel)

  if marshalError != nil {
    panic(data)
  }
  fmt.Println(string(data))
}

I have a struct with two fields: the first field is a Name string and the second is an Errors array of error. I want to marshal that struct to JSON, and I want an output like the following:

{"Name":"Mr Model","Errors":["e1", "e2"]}

If you run the snippet the output you get is:

{"Name":"Mr Model","Errors":[{},{}]}

I'm not getting the expected messages! The problem here is that I assumed that json.Marshal was going to know how to marshal an error interface, which didn't happen. Now, If we look at the json.Marshal documentation, something stands out:

If an encountered value implements the Marshaler interface and is not a nil pointer, Marshal calls its MarshalJSON method to produce JSON.

But how do I give my error elements a MarshalJSON method?.

Answer 1: embed the error in your own error structure and add the proper member function.

type MyError struct {
    error
}

func (me MyError) MarshalJSON() ([]byte, error) {
    return json.Marshal(me.Error())
}

And then create the errors this way:

amodel := AModel{"Mr Model",
    []error{MyError{errors.New("e1")}, MyError{errors.New("e2")}}
}

Running the example with those changes would now output:

{"Name":"Mr Model","Errors":["e1","e2"]}

Having to create a new MyError that is just wrapping the original errors now seems unnecessary, so I went to the Gopher Academy Slack community and asked about it, and Joe Shaw gave me an interesting answer:

Answer 2: Implement a type based on []error and implement MarshalJSON instead.

First implement our own type:

type MarshalableErrors []error

And then implement a more involved MarshalJSON example:

func (me MarshalableErrors) MarshalJSON() ([]byte, error) {
  data := []byte("[")
  for i, err := range me {
    if i != 0 {
      data = append(data, ',')
    }

    j, err := json.Marshal(err.Error())
    if err != nil {
      return nil, err
    }

    data = append(data, j...)
  }
  data = append(data, ']')

  return data, nil
}

And then use it as in:

type AModel struct {
  Name   string
  Errors MarshalableErrors
}

func main() {
  amodel := AModel{"Mr Model",
    []error{errors.New("e1"), errors.New("e2")}}

  data, marshalError := json.Marshal(amodel)

  if marshalError != nil {
    panic(marshalError)
  }
  fmt.Println(string(data))
}

Try it here.

For this example I prefer to go with the second answer because it allows me keep my errors creation simple by delegating the JSON marshalling process to single function.

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Thank you for reading.