encoding/json: Marshal outputs invalid JSON when json.Number contains an invalid number

[dyatlov]

See this discussion: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/golang-nuts/EErMkG2NWIM

Playground example: http://play.golang.org/p/9ngj404GyR

My service parses JSON data from multiple 3rd party websites and they all provide json differently.. some of them use numbers, some use strings.. after receiving json I do several manipulations with it and then pass it to other service.. but it in cases when site returns invalid number - my json becomes invalid too which shouldn't happen by design.. json.Number value in this case should contain 0, right?

[bradfitz]

Please don't ignore error return values, especially in bug reports. That's not the problem here, but people may not believe the bug report as much if you throw away errors.

Better example:

https://play.golang.org/p/ezMFRg_v9k

package main

import (
    "encoding/json"
    "fmt"
)

type js struct {
    Test1 json.Number `json:"test1"`
    Test2 json.Number `json:"test2"`
}

func main() {
    res, err := json.Marshal(js{
        Test1: "100",
        Test2: "100%",
    })
    fmt.Printf("%s, %v", res, err)
}

Outputs:

{"test1":100,"test2":100%}, <nil>

[dyatlov]

Thank you Brad,
I think it's hard to solve the problem without breaking backward compatibility.. for current apps solution could be to use interface{} instead of json.Number and then do conversion manually or reassign json.Number value to a new one right after Unmarshalling.

That type Number string makes things very difficult.

I can think of an option for json.Decoder which would accept callback to validate json.Number or an option which would provide a regex to validate it.
This would help with Unmarshalling.
As about your example - I think json.Number should be defined as a struct/interface and assigning to a Number would be possible only by creating a new struct. Automatic Number <-> String should never happen.

[dominikh]

Dup of #10281?

[bradfitz]

Yup.