I have a struct Person.
type Person struct {
Firstname string
Lastname string
Years uint8
}
Then I have two instances of this struct, PersonA and PersonB.
PersonA := {"", "Obama", 6}
PersonB := {"President", "Carter", 8}
I want to write a function that copies the values from PersonA to PersonB given some condition for each field (i.e. non-empty). I know how to do this by hard-coding the field names, but I want a function that works even if I change the Person struct.
I know Go reflections is helpful, but the issue is getting and setting the values requires knowing the types, if you want to use something like SetInt. But is there is a "simple" way to do this?
** Javascript analogy **
In Javascript, you could just do a (for property in someObject) to loop through.
(for propt in personA) {
if personA[propt] != "" {
// do something
personB[propt] = personA[propt]
}
}
Options I've ruled out:
Keeping track of the fields in each struct in a map, then using a combination of FieldByName and the collection of Set* functions in the reflect pkg.
Creating a loop through the fields of Person manually (below). Because I want to do this type of "update" for many other structs (School, Animals, etc...)
if PersonA.Firstname != "" {
PersonB.Firstname = PersonA.Firstname
}
...
if PersonA.Years != "" {
PersonB.Years = PersonA.Years
}
The question below gets me half-way there, but still isn't extensible to all structs for which I want to utilize this "update" function.
in golang, using reflect, how do you set the value of a struct field?
** Other Helpful Links **
GoLang: Access struct property by name
Use reflect.ValueOf()
to convert to concrete type. After that you could use reflect.Value.SetString to set the value you want.
structValue := FooBar{Foo: "foo", Bar: 10}
fields := reflect.TypeOf(structValue)
values := reflect.ValueOf(structValue)
num := fields.NumField()
for i := 0; i < num; i++ {
field := fields.Field(i)
value := values.Field(i)
fmt.Print("Type:", field.Type, ",", field.Name, "=", value, "\n")
switch value.Kind() {
case reflect.String:
v := value.String())
fmt.Print(v, "\n")
case reflect.Int:
v := strconv.FormatInt(value.Int(), 10)
fmt.Print(v, "\n")
case reflect.Int32:
v := strconv.FormatInt(value.Int(), 10)
fmt.Print(v, "\n")
case reflect.Int64:
v := strconv.FormatInt(value.Int(), 10)
fmt.Print(v, "\n")
default:
assert.Fail(t, "Not support type of struct")
}
}
Here is the solution f2.Set(reflect.Value(f))
is the key here
package main
import (
"fmt"
"reflect"
)
func main() {
type T struct {
A int
B string
}
t := T{23, "skidoo"}
t2:= T{}
s := reflect.ValueOf(&t).Elem()
s2 := reflect.ValueOf(&t2).Elem()
typeOfT := s.Type()
fmt.Println("t=",t)
fmt.Println("t2=",t2)
for i := 0; i < s.NumField(); i++ {
f := s.Field(i)
f2:= s2.Field(i)
fmt.Printf("%d: %s %s = %v\n", i,
typeOfT.Field(i).Name, f.Type(), f.Interface())
fmt.Printf("%d: %s %s = %v\n", i,
typeOfT.Field(i).Name, f2.Type(), f2.Interface())
f2.Set(reflect.Value(f))
fmt.Printf("%d: %s %s = %v\n", i,
typeOfT.Field(i).Name, f2.Type(), f2.Interface())
}
fmt.Println("t=",t)
fmt.Println("t2=",t2)
}
Output:
t= {23 skidoo}
t2= {0 }
0: A int = 23
0: A int = 0
0: A int = 23
1: B string = skidoo
1: B string =
1: B string = skidoo
t= {23 skidoo}
t2= {23 skidoo}
http://play.golang.org/p/UKFMBxfbZD
Reflection should be all you need. This seems similar (though not identical) to "deep copy" semantics, which has been implemented at https://godoc.org/code.google.com/p/rog-go/exp/deepcopy
You should be able to adapt that to your needs, or at least take some ideas from it.
You should use a map[string]interface{}
instead, gonna be much faster (although still not as fast as you used the proper logic with actual structs).
package main
import "fmt"
type Object map[string]interface{}
var m = Object{
"Firstname": "name",
"Lastname": "",
"years": uint8(10),
}
func main() {
var cp = Object{}
for k, v := range m {
if s, ok := v.(string); ok && s != "" {
cp[k] = s
} else if ui, ok := v.(uint8); ok {
cp[k] = ui
}
}
fmt.Printf("%#v\n", cp)
}