I have a simple type that implements conversion of subtyped integer consts to strings and vice versa in Go. I want to be able to automatically unmarshal strings in JSON to values of this type. I can't, because UnmarshalJSON doesn't give me a way to return or modify the scalar value. It's expecting a struct, whose members are set by UnmarshalJSON. The ",string" method doesn't work either for other than builtin scalar types. Is there a way to implement UnmarshalJSON correctly for a derived scalar type?
Here's an example of what I'm after. I want it to print "Hello Ralph" four times, but it prints "Hello Bob" four times because the PersonID isn't being changed.
package main
import (
"encoding/json"
"fmt"
)
type PersonID int
const (
Bob PersonID = iota
Jane
Ralph
Nobody = -1
)
var nameMap = map[string]PersonID{
"Bob": Bob,
"Jane": Jane,
"Ralph": Ralph,
"Nobody": Nobody,
}
var idMap = map[PersonID]string{
Bob: "Bob",
Jane: "Jane",
Ralph: "Ralph",
Nobody: "Nobody",
}
func (intValue PersonID) Name() string {
return idMap[intValue]
}
func Lookup(name string) PersonID {
return nameMap[name]
}
func (intValue PersonID) UnmarshalJSON(data []byte) error {
// The following line is not correct
intValue = Lookup(string(data))
return nil
}
type MyType struct {
Person PersonID `json: "person"`
Count int `json: "count"`
Greeting string `json: "greeting"`
}
func main() {
var m MyType
if err := json.Unmarshal([]byte(`{"person": "Ralph", "count": 4, "greeting": "Hello"}`), &m); err != nil {
fmt.Println(err)
} else {
for i := 0; i < m.Count; i++ {
fmt.Println(m.Greeting, m.Person.Name())
}
}
}