Building RESTful APIs in Go: A Step-by-Step Guide
Introduction
RESTful APIs are the backbone of modern web applications, enabling communication between different services. Go, with its powerful net/http
package, provides a straightforward way to build these APIs. In this article, we’ll walk through creating a RESTful API in Go, complete with routing, middleware, and JSON handling.
Setting Up Your Project
To start, create a new Go module:
go mod init myapi
Next, create a basic server that listens on port 8080:
package main
import (
"net/http"
"log"
)
func main() {
http.HandleFunc("/api/hello", func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
w.Write([]byte("Hello, World!"))
})
log.Fatal(http.ListenAndServe(":8080", nil))
}
Routing with Gorilla Mux
For more advanced routing, you can use the Gorilla Mux package:
go get -u github.com/gorilla/mux
import (
"github.com/gorilla/mux"
)
r := mux.NewRouter()
r.HandleFunc("/api/hello", helloHandler).Methods("GET")
Middleware for Enhanced Functionality
Middleware functions can be used to add additional processing to your routes, such as logging or authentication:
func loggingMiddleware(next http.Handler) http.Handler {
return http.HandlerFunc(func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {…