go-restful

package for building REST-style Web Services using Google Go

Code examples use v3

REST asks developers to use HTTP methods explicitly and in a way that's consistent with the protocol definition. This basic REST design principle establishes a one-to-one mapping between create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) operations and HTTP methods. According to this mapping:

GET = Retrieve a representation of a resource
POST = Create if you are sending content to the server to create a subordinate of the specified resource collection, using some server-side algorithm.
PUT = Create if you are sending the full content of the specified resource (URI).
PUT = Update if you are updating the full content of the specified resource.
DELETE = Delete if you are requesting the server to delete the resource
PATCH = Update partial content of a resource
OPTIONS = Get information about the communication options for the request URI

Usage

Without Go Modules

All versions up to v2.*.* (on the master) are not supporting Go modules.

import (
	restful "github.com/emicklei/go-restful"
)

Using Go Modules

As of version v3.0.0 (on the v3 branch), this package supports Go modules.

import (
	restful "github.com/emicklei/go-restful/v3"
)

Example

ws := new(restful.WebService)
ws.
	Path("/users").
	Consumes(restful.MIME_XML, restful.MIME_JSON).
	Produces(restful.MIME_JSON, restful.MIME_XML)

ws.Route(ws.GET("/{user-id}").To(u.findUser).
	Doc("get a user").
	Param(ws.PathParameter("user-id", "identifier of the user").DataType("string")).
	Writes(User{}))		
...
	
func (u UserResource) findUser(request *restful.Request, response *restful.Response) {
	id := request.PathParameter("user-id")
	...
}

Full API of a UserResource

Features

Routes for request → function mapping with path parameter (e.g. {id} but also prefix_{var} and {var}_suffix) support
Configurable router:
- (default) Fast routing algorithm that allows static elements, google custom method, regular expressions and dynamic parameters in the URL path (e.g. /resource/name:customVerb, /meetings/{id} or /static/{subpath:*})
- Routing algorithm after JSR311 that is implemented using (but does not accept) regular expressions
Request API for reading structs from JSON/XML and accessing parameters (path,query,header)
Response API for writing structs to JSON/XML and setting headers
Customizable encoding using EntityReaderWriter registration
Filters for intercepting the request → response flow on Service or Route level
Request-scoped variables using attributes
Containers for WebServices on different HTTP endpoints
Content encoding (gzip,deflate) of request and response payloads
Automatic responses on OPTIONS (using a filter)
Automatic CORS request handling (using a filter)
API declaration for Swagger UI (go-restful-openapi)
Panic recovery to produce HTTP 500, customizable using RecoverHandler(...)
Route errors produce HTTP 404/405/406/415 errors, customizable using ServiceErrorHandler(...)
Configurable (trace) logging
Customizable gzip/deflate readers and writers using CompressorProvider registration
Inject your own http.Handler using the HttpMiddlewareHandlerToFilter function

How to customize

There are several hooks to customize the behavior of the go-restful package.

Router algorithm
Panic recovery
JSON decoder
Trace logging
Compression
Encoders for other serializers
Use jsoniter by building this package using a build tag, e.g. go build -tags=jsoniter .
Use the variable MergePathStrategy to change the behaviour of composing the Route path given a root path and a local route path
- versions >= 3.10.1 has set the value to PathJoinStrategy that fixes a reported security issue but may cause your services not to work correctly anymore.
- versions <= 3.9 had the behaviour that can be restored in newer versions by setting the value to TrimSlashStrategy.
- you can set value to a custom implementation (must implement MergePathStrategyFunc)

Resources

Type git shortlog -s for a full list of contributors.

tmshort/go-restful