binding

Model binding and validation from gin

To bind a request body into a type, use model binding. We currently support binding of JSON, XML and standard form values (foo=bar&boo=baz).

Gin uses go-playground/validator.v8 for validation. Check the full docs on tags usage here.

Note that you need to set the corresponding binding tag on all fields you want to bind. For example, when binding from JSON, set json:"fieldname".

Also, Gin provides two sets of methods for binding:

• Type - Must bind
  • Methods - Bind, BindJSON, BindQuery
  • Behavior - These methods use MustBindWith under the hood. If there is a binding error, the request is aborted with c.AbortWithError(400, err).SetType(ErrorTypeBind). This sets the response status code to 400 and the Content-Type header is set to text/plain; charset=utf-8. Note that if you try to set the response code after this, it will result in a warning [GIN-debug] [WARNING] Headers were already written. Wanted to override status code 400 with 422. If you wish to have greater control over the behavior, consider using the ShouldBind equivalent method.
• Type - Should bind
  • Methods - ShouldBind, ShouldBindJSON, ShouldBindQuery
  • Behavior - These methods use ShouldBindWith under the hood. If there is a binding error, the error is returned and it is the developer's responsibility to handle the request and error appropriately.

When using the Bind-method, Gin tries to infer the binder depending on the Content-Type header. If you are sure what you are binding, you can use MustBindWith or ShouldBindWith.

You can also specify that specific fields are required. If a field is decorated with binding:"required" and has a empty value when binding, an error will be returned.

// Binding from JSON
type Login struct {
	User     string `form:"user" json:"user" binding:"required"`
	Password string `form:"password" json:"password" binding:"required"`
}

func main() {
	router := gin.Default()

	// Example for binding JSON ({"user": "manu", "password": "123"})
	router.POST("/loginJSON", func(c *gin.Context) {
		var json Login
		if err := c.ShouldBindJSON(&json); err == nil {
			if json.User == "manu" && json.Password == "123" {
				c.JSON(http.StatusOK, gin.H{"status": "you are logged in"})
			} else {
				c.JSON(http.StatusUnauthorized, gin.H{"status": "unauthorized"})
			}
		} else {
			c.JSON(http.StatusBadRequest, gin.H{"error": err.Error()})
		}
	})

	// Example for binding a HTML form (user=manu&password=123)
	router.POST("/loginForm", func(c *gin.Context) {
		var form Login
		// This will infer what binder to use depending on the content-type header.
		if err := c.ShouldBind(&form); err == nil {
			if form.User == "manu" && form.Password == "123" {
				c.JSON(http.StatusOK, gin.H{"status": "you are logged in"})
			} else {
				c.JSON(http.StatusUnauthorized, gin.H{"status": "unauthorized"})
			}
		} else {
			c.JSON(http.StatusBadRequest, gin.H{"error": err.Error()})
		}
	})

	// Listen and serve on 0.0.0.0:8080
	router.Run(":8080")
}

Sample request

$ curl -v -X POST \
  http://localhost:8080/loginJSON \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{ "user": "manu" }'
> POST /loginJSON HTTP/1.1
> Host: localhost:8080
> User-Agent: curl/7.51.0
> Accept: */*
> content-type: application/json
> Content-Length: 18
>
* upload completely sent off: 18 out of 18 bytes
< HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request
< Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
< Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2017 03:51:31 GMT
< Content-Length: 100
<
{"error":"Key: 'Login.Password' Error:Field validation for 'Password' failed on the 'required' tag"}

Custom Validators

It is also possible to register custom validators. See the example code.

package main

import (
	"net/http"
	"reflect"
	"time"

	"github.com/gin-gonic/gin"
	"github.com/gin-gonic/gin/binding"
	"gopkg.in/go-playground/validator.v8"
)

type Booking struct {
	CheckIn  time.Time `form:"check_in" binding:"required,bookabledate" time_format:"2006-01-02"`
	CheckOut time.Time `form:"check_out" binding:"required,gtfield=CheckIn" time_format:"2006-01-02"`
}

func bookableDate(
	v *validator.Validate, topStruct reflect.Value, currentStructOrField reflect.Value,
	field reflect.Value, fieldType reflect.Type, fieldKind reflect.Kind, param string,
) bool {
	if date, ok := field.Interface().(time.Time); ok {
		today := time.Now()
		if today.Year() > date.Year() || today.YearDay() > date.YearDay() {
			return false
		}
	}
	return true
}

func main() {
	route := gin.Default()

	if v, ok := binding.Validator.Engine().(*validator.Validate); ok {
		v.RegisterValidation("bookabledate", bookableDate)
	}

	route.GET("/bookable", getBookable)
	route.Run(":8085")
}

func getBookable(c *gin.Context) {
	var b Booking
	if err := c.ShouldBindWith(&b, binding.Query); err == nil {
		c.JSON(http.StatusOK, gin.H{"message": "Booking dates are valid!"})
	} else {
		c.JSON(http.StatusBadRequest, gin.H{"error": err.Error()})
	}
}

$ curl "localhost:8085/bookable?check_in=2018-04-16&check_out=2018-04-17"
{"message":"Booking dates are valid!"}

$ curl "localhost:8085/bookable?check_in=2018-03-08&check_out=2018-03-09"
{"error":"Key: 'Booking.CheckIn' Error:Field validation for 'CheckIn' failed on the 'bookabledate' tag"}

Struct level validations can also be registed this way. See the struct-lvl-validation example to learn more.

Only Bind Query String

ShouldBindQuery function only binds the query params and not the post data. See the detail information.

package main

import (
	"log"

	"github.com/gin-gonic/gin"
)

type Person struct {
	Name    string `form:"name"`
	Address string `form:"address"`
}

func main() {
	route := gin.Default()
	route.Any("/testing", startPage)
	route.Run(":8085")
}

func startPage(c *gin.Context) {
	var person Person
	if c.ShouldBindQuery(&person) == nil {
		log.Println("====== Only Bind By Query String ======")
		log.Println(person.Name)
		log.Println(person.Address)
	}
	c.String(200, "Success")
}

Bind Query String or Post Data

See the detail information.

package main

import "log"
import "github.com/gin-gonic/gin"
import "time"

type Person struct {
	Name     string    `form:"name"`
	Address  string    `form:"address"`
	Birthday time.Time `form:"birthday" time_format:"2006-01-02" time_utc:"1"`
}

func main() {
	route := gin.Default()
	route.GET("/testing", startPage)
	route.Run(":8085")
}

func startPage(c *gin.Context) {
	var person Person
	// If `GET`, only `Form` binding engine (`query`) used.
	// If `POST`, first checks the `content-type` for `JSON` or `XML`, then uses `Form` (`form-data`).
	// See more at https://github.com/gin-gonic/gin/blob/master/binding/binding.go#L48
	if c.ShouldBind(&person) == nil {
		log.Println(person.Name)
		log.Println(person.Address)
		log.Println(person.Birthday)
	}

	c.String(200, "Success")
}

Test it with:

$ curl -X GET "localhost:8085/testing?name=appleboy&address=xyz&birthday=1992-03-15"

Bind HTML checkboxes

See the detail information

main.go

...

type myForm struct {
    Colors []string `form:"colors[]"`
}

...

func formHandler(c *gin.Context) {
    var fakeForm myForm
    c.ShouldBind(&fakeForm)
    c.JSON(200, gin.H{"color": fakeForm.Colors})
}

...

form.html

<form action="/" method="POST">
    <p>Check some colors</p>
    <label for="red">Red</label>
    <input type="checkbox" name="colors[]" value="red" id="red" />
    <label for="green">Green</label>
    <input type="checkbox" name="colors[]" value="green" id="green" />
    <label for="blue">Blue</label>
    <input type="checkbox" name="colors[]" value="blue" id="blue" />
    <input type="submit" />
</form>

result:

{"color":["red","green","blue"]}

Multipart/Urlencoded binding

package main

import (
	"github.com/gin-gonic/gin"
)

type LoginForm struct {
	User     string `form:"user" binding:"required"`
	Password string `form:"password" binding:"required"`
}

func main() {
	router := gin.Default()
	router.POST("/login", func(c *gin.Context) {
		// you can bind multipart form with explicit binding declaration:
		// c.ShouldBindWith(&form, binding.Form)
		// or you can simply use autobinding with ShouldBind method:
		var form LoginForm
		// in this case proper binding will be automatically selected
		if c.ShouldBind(&form) == nil {
			if form.User == "user" && form.Password == "password" {
				c.JSON(200, gin.H{"status": "you are logged in"})
			} else {
				c.JSON(401, gin.H{"status": "unauthorized"})
			}
		}
	})
	router.Run(":8080")
}

Test it with:

$ curl -v --form user=user --form password=password http://localhost:8080/login

Query/Multipart/Urlencoded binding with nested struct which should be encoded by json

package main

import (
	"github.com/gin-gonic/gin"
)

type LoginForm struct {
	User     string `form:"user" binding:"required"`
	Password string `form:"password" binding:"required"`
    Option Option `form:"option" binding:"required"`
}

type Option struct {
    Timeout string `form:"timeout" binding:"required"`
}

func main() {
	router := gin.Default()
	router.POST("/login", func(c *gin.Context) {
		// you can bind multipart form with explicit binding declaration:
		// c.ShouldBindWith(&form, binding.Form)
		// or you can simply use autobinding with ShouldBind method:
		var form LoginForm
		// in this case proper binding will be automatically selected
		if c.ShouldBind(&form) == nil {
			if form.User == "user" && form.Password == "password" {
				c.JSON(200, gin.H{"status": "you are logged in"})
			} else {
				c.JSON(401, gin.H{"status": "unauthorized"})
			}
		}
	})
	router.Run(":8080")
}

Test it with:

$ curl -v --form user=user --form password=password --form option="{\"timeout\":10}" http://localhost:8080/login