Time parsing error in Golang while Un-Marshalling

Question

The JSON Request Body:

{
        "ifr": "b997c96cb360",
        "ste": "EN",
        "tye": "random",
        "description": "desc",
        "creationDate": "2023-04-06 06:01:24",
        "modifiedDate": "2023-04-11 09:44:48"
}

Struct :

type M struct {
 Ifr           string             `xml:"ifr,omitempty" json:"ifr,omitempty" validate:"required"`
 Ste           string             `xml:"ste,omitempty" json:"ste,omitempty"`
 Tye           string             `json:"tye,omitempty" xml:"tye,omitempty"`
 Description   string             `xml:"description,omitempty" json:"description,omitempty"`
 CreationDate  time.Time          `xml:"creationDate,omitempty" json:"creationDate,omitempty"`
 ModifiedDate  time.Time          `xml:"modifiedDate,omitempty" json:"modifiedDate,omitempty"`
}

**When the above json body is passed for Un-Marshalling, I get this error:

error(time.ParseError) {Layout: ""2006-01-02T15:04:05Z07:00"", Value: ""2023-04-06 06:01:24"", LayoutElem: "T", ValueElem: " 06:01:24"", Message: ""}

Function :

func ConvertRequestBodyIntoCustomStruct(ctx *gin.Context, structure interface{}) *appError.AppError {
    //Reading the request body
    body, _ := ioutil.ReadAll(ctx.Request.Body)

    //obtaining the content-type
    contentType := ctx.Request.Header.Get("Content-Type")

    
    //un-marshalling the request based on content-type
    if contentType == constants.APPLICAITON_XML {
        err := xml.Unmarshal(body, &structure)
        if err != nil {
            return appError.NewValidationError(appError.ErrInUnMarshalling, appError.ErrInUnMarshalling, appError.ErrInUnMarshalling)
        }
    } else {
        err := json.Unmarshal(body, &structure)
        if err != nil {
            return appError.NewValidationError(appError.ErrInUnMashling, appError.ErrCodeInUnMashling, appError.ErrInUnMashling)
        }
    }

    return nil
}

I expect it not to throw the above mentioned error while unmarshalling.

Answer 1

The error you are encountering is related to the format of the CreationDate and ModifiedDate fields in the JSON request body. According to the error message, the layout used for parsing the time string is ""2006-01-02T15:04:05Z07:00"", but the actual value in the request body is "2023-04-06 06:01:24".

To fix this issue, you need to update the layout used for parsing the time string to match the format of the time values in the JSON request body. Based on the example JSON request body you provided, the correct layout should be "2006-01-02 15:04:05".

Here's an updated version of your code with the correct layout:

func ConvertRequestBodyIntoCustomStruct(ctx *gin.Context, structure interface{}) *appError.AppError {
    // Reading the request body
    body, _ := ioutil.ReadAll(ctx.Request.Body)

    // Obtaining the content-type
    contentType := ctx.Request.Header.Get("Content-Type")

    // Unmarshalling the request based on content-type
    if contentType == constants.APPLICAITON_XML {
        err := xml.Unmarshal(body, &structure)
        if err != nil {
            return appError.NewValidationError(appError.ErrInUnMarshalling, appError.ErrInUnMarshalling, appError.ErrInUnMarshalling)
        }
    } else {
        // Define a custom time layout
        const customTimeLayout = "2006-01-02 15:04:05"
        
        // Unmarshal using the custom time layout
        err := json.Unmarshal(body, &structure)
        if err != nil {
            return appError.NewValidationError(appError.ErrInUnMashling, appError.ErrCodeInUnMashling, appError.ErrInUnMashling)
        }
        // Update CreationDate and ModifiedDate fields with custom time layout
        if m, ok := structure.(*M); ok {
            m.CreationDate, err = time.Parse(customTimeLayout, m.CreationDate.Format(customTimeLayout))
            if err != nil {
                return appError.NewValidationError(appError.ErrInUnMashling, appError.ErrCodeInUnMashling, appError.ErrInUnMashling)
            }
            m.ModifiedDate, err = time.Parse(customTimeLayout, m.ModifiedDate.Format(customTimeLayout))
            if err != nil {
                return appError.NewValidationError(appError.ErrInUnMashling, appError.ErrCodeInUnMashling, appError.ErrInUnMashling)
            }
        }
    }

    return nil
}

By updating the time layout to match the format of the time values in the JSON request body, you should be able to successfully unmarshal the request without encountering the "time.ParseError" error.