Go HTTP client. Inspired by the simplicity of axios and JSON handling in JS. Improved with generics.

Reasons

1. I was tired of writing json:"fieldName,omitempty" alongside each field. This package de-capitalizes the public fields in JSON parsing and omits empty ones unless json tag is specified.
2. I always forget all the boilerplate code to make an HTTP request. This package provides a simple one-function call approach.

Installing

This is a zero-dependency package. It requires Go version 1.21 or above. Stable version is out!

go get github.com/glossd/fetch

Structure

Functions of the fetch package match HTTP methods. Each function is generic and its generic type is the response.

$${\color{lightblue}fetch. \color{lightgreen}Method \color{lightblue}[ \color{cyan}ResponseType \color{lightblue}](url \space string, \space ...) \space returns \space \color{cyan}ResponseType}$$

Examples

This is the Pet object from https://petstore.swagger.io/

{
  "id": 1,
  "name": "Buster",
  "tags": [
    {
      "name": "beagle"
    }
  ]
}

GET request

Print response

str, err := fetch.Get[string]("https://petstore.swagger.io/v2/pet/1")
if err != nil {
    //handle err
}
fmt.Println(str)

Dynamically typed

fetch.J is an interface representing arbitrary JSON.

j, err := fetch.Get[fetch.J]("https://petstore.swagger.io/v2/pet/1")
if err != nil {
    panic(err)
}
// access nested values using jq-like patterns
fmt.Println("Pet's name is ", j.Q(".name"))
fmt.Println("First tag's name is ", j.Q(".tags[0].name"))

More about jq-like patterns

Statically typed

type Tag struct {
    Name string
}
type Pet struct {
    Name string
    Tags []Tag
}

pet, err := fetch.Get[Pet]("https://petstore.swagger.io/v2/pet/1")
if err != nil {
    panic(err)
}
fmt.Println("Pet's name is ", pet.Name)
fmt.Println("First tag's name is ", pet.Tags[0].Name) // handle index

POST request

Post, Put and others have an additional argument for the request body of any type.

type Pet struct {
    Name string
}
type IdObj struct {
    Id int
}
obj, err := fetch.Post[IdObj]("https://petstore.swagger.io/v2/pet", Pet{Name: "Lola"})
if err != nil {
    panic(err)
}
fmt.Println("Posted pet's ID ", obj.Id)

*Passing string or []byte type variable as the second argument will directly add its value to the request body.

HTTP response status, headers and other attributes

If you need to check the status or headers of the response, you can wrap your response type with fetch.Response.

type Pet struct {
    Name string
}
resp, err := fetch.Get[fetch.Response[Pet]]("https://petstore.swagger.io/v2/pet/1")
if err != nil {
    panic(err)
}
if resp.Status == 200 {
    fmt.Println("Found pet with id 1")
    // Response.Body is the Pet object.
    fmt.Println("Pet's name is ", resp.Body.Name)
    fmt.Println("Response headers", resp.Headers)
}

If you don't need the HTTP body you can use fetch.Empty. Or fetch.ResponseEmpty to access http attributes

res, err := fetch.Delete[fetch.ResponseEmpty]("https://petstore.swagger.io/v2/pet/10")
if err != nil {
    panic(err)
}
fmt.Println("Status:", res.Status)
fmt.Println("Headers:", res.Headers)

Error handling

Any non-2xx response status is treated as an error! If the error isn't nil it can be safely cast to *fetch.Error which will contain the status and other HTTP attributes.

_, err := fetch.Get[string]("https://petstore.swagger.io/v2/pet/-1")
if err != nil {
    fmt.Printf("Get pet failed: %s\n", err)
    ferr := err.(*fetch.Error)
    fmt.Printf("HTTP status=%d, headers=%v, body=%s", ferr.Status, ferr.Headers, ferr.Body)
}

Make request with Go Context

Request Context lives in fetch.Config

func myFuncWithContext(ctx context.Context) {
    ...
    res, err := fetch.Get[string]("https://petstore.swagger.io/v2/pet/1", fetch.Config{Ctx: ctx})
    ...
}

Request with 5 seconds timeout:

fetch.Get[string]("https://petstore.swagger.io/v2/pet/1", fetch.Config{Timeout: 5*time.Second})

Request with headers

headers := map[string]string{"Content-type": "text/plain"}
_, err := fetch.Get[string]("https://petstore.swagger.io/v2/pet/1", fetch.Config{Headers: headers})
if err != nil {
    panic(err)
}

Capitalized fields

If you want this package to parse the public fields as capitalized into JSON, you need to add the json tag:

type Pet struct {
    Name string `json:"Name"`
}

Arrays

Simple, just pass an array as the response type.

type Pet struct {
    Name string
}
pets, err := fetch.Get[[]Pet]("https://petstore.swagger.io/v2/pet/findByStatus?status=sold")
if err != nil {
    panic(err)
}
fmt.Println("First sold pet ", pets[0]) // handle index out of range

Or you can use fetch.J

j, err := fetch.Get[fetch.J]("https://petstore.swagger.io/v2/pet/findByStatus?status=sold")
if err != nil {
    panic(err)
}
fmt.Println("First sold pet ", j.Q(".[0]"))

JQ-like queries

fetch.J is an interface with Q method which provides easy access to any field.
Method fetch.J#String() returns JSON formatted string of the value.

j := fetch.Parse(`{
    "name": "Jason",
    "category": {
        "name":"dogs"
    },
    "tags": [
        {"name":"briard"}
    ]
}`)

fmt.Println("Print the whole json:", j)
fmt.Println("Pet's name is", j.Q(".name"))
fmt.Println("Pet's category name is", j.Q(".category.name"))
fmt.Println("First tag's name is", j.Q(".tags[0].name"))

Method fetch.J#Q returns fetch.J. You can use the method Q on the result as well.

category := j.Q(".category")
fmt.Println("Pet's category object", category)
fmt.Println("Pet's category name is", category.Q(".name"))

To convert fetch.J to a basic value use one of As* methods

J Method	Return type
AsObject	map[string]any
AsArray	[]any
AsNumber	float64
AsString	string
AsBoolean	bool

E.g.

n, ok := fetch.Parse(`{"price": 14.99}`).Q(".price").AsNumber()
if !ok {
    // not a number
}
fmt.Printf("Price: %.2f\n", n) // n is a float64

Use IsNil to check the value on presence.

if fetch.Parse("{}").Q(".price").IsNil() {
    fmt.Println("key 'price' doesn't exist")
}
// fields of unknown values are nil as well.
if fetch.Parse("{}").Q(".price.cents").IsNil() {
    fmt.Println("'cents' of undefined is fine.")
}

JSON handling

I have patched encoding/json package and attached to the internal folder, but you can use these functions.

Marhsal

Use it to convert any object into a string. It's the same as json.Marshal but it treats public struct fields as de-capitalized and omits empty fields by default unless json tag is specified.

str, err := fetch.Marhsal(map[string]string{"key":"value"})

Unmarshalling

Unmarshal will parse the input into the generic type.

type Pet struct {
    Name string
}
p, err := fetch.Unmarshal[Pet](`{"name":"Jason"}`)
if err != nil {
    panic(err)
}
fmt.Println(p.Name)

fetch.Parse unmarshalls JSON string into fetch.J, returning fetch.Nil instead of an error, which allows you to write one-liners.

fmt.Println(fetch.Parse(`{"name":"Jason"}`).Q(".name"))

Global Setters

You can set base URL path for all requests.

fetch.SetBaseURL("https://petstore.swagger.io/v2")
pet := fetch.Get[string]("/pets/1")
// you can still call other URLs by passing URL with protocol.
fetch.Get[string]("https://www.google.com")

You can set the http.Client for all requests

fetch.SetHttpClient(&http.Client{Timeout: time.Minute})

fetch.Config

Each HTTP method has the configuration option.

type Config struct {
    // Defaults to context.Background()
    Ctx context.Context
    // Sets Ctx with the specified timeout. If Ctx is specified Timeout is ignored.
    Timeout time.Duration
    // Defaults to GET
    Method  string
    Body    string
    Headers map[string]string
}

HTTP Handlers

fetch.ToHandlerFunc converts func(in) (out, error) signature function into http.HandlerFunc. It does all the json and http handling for you. The HTTP request body unmarshalls into the function argument. The return value is marshaled into the HTTP response body.

type Pet struct {
    Name string
}
http.HandleFunc("/pets/update", fetch.ToHandlerFunc(func(in Pet) (*Pet, error) {
    if in.Name == "" {
        return nil, fmt.Errorf("name can't be empty")
    }
    return &Pet{Name: in.Name + " 3000"}, nil
}))
http.ListenAndServe(":8080", nil)

$ curl localhost:8080/pets/update -d '{"name":"Lola"}'
{"name":"Lola 3000"}

Ignoring request or response

If you have an empty request or response body or you want to ignore them, use fetch.Empty:

http.HandleFunc("/default-pet", fetch.ToHandlerFunc(func(_ fetch.Empty) (Pet, error) {
    return Pet{Name: "Teddy"}, nil
}))

Alternatively, you can use fetch.ToHandlerFuncEmptyIn and fetch.ToHandlerFuncEmptyOut functions.

Wrappers

If you need to access http request attributes wrap the input with fetch.Request:

type Pet struct {
    Name string
}
http.HandleFunc("/pets", fetch.ToHandlerFunc(func(req fetch.Request[Pet]) (*fetch.Empty, error) {
    fmt.Println("Request context:", req.Context)
    fmt.Println("Authorization header:", req.Headers["Authorization"])
    fmt.Println("Pet:", req.Body)
    fmt.Println("Pet's name:", req.Body.Name)
    return nil, nil
}))

If you have go1.23 and above you can access the wildcards as well.

http.HandleFunc("GET /pets/{id}", fetch.ToHandlerFunc(func(in fetch.RequestEmpty) (*fetch.Empty, error) {
    fmt.Println("id from url:", in.PathValues["id"])
    return nil, nil
}))

To customize http attributes of the response, wrap the output with fetch.Response

http.HandleFunc("/pets", fetch.ToHandlerFunc(func(_ fetch.Empty) (fetch.Response[*Pet], error) {
    return Response[*Pet]{Status: 201, Body: &Pet{Name: "Lola"}}, nil
}))

The error format can be customized with the fetch.SetHandlerErrorFormat global setter.
To log ToHandleFunc errors with your logger call SetHandlerConfig

fetch.SetHandlerConfig(fetch.HandlerConfig{ErrorHook: func(err error) {
    mylogger.Errorf("fetch http error: %s", err)
}})

To add middleware before handling request in fetch.ToHandlerFunc

fetch.SetHandlerConfig(fetch.HandlerConfig{Middleware: func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) bool {
    if r.Header.Get("Authorization") == "" {
        w.WriteHeader(401)
        return true
    }
    return false
}})