Working with POST Request Data

· 204 words · 1 minute read
#http #post #request #data #form #param #contenttype #parse

This is an overview post (pun intended) about how to work with post request data sent to an endpoint via HTTP. This is slightly different to data stored in query parameters sent in the url and has to be handled differently.

Because we’re using a http server, we can parse the request (in variable r) using ParseForm() and then use the data from the map generated.

This will only work with data sent with a Content-Type header of application/x-www-form-urlencode or multipart/form-data. JSON is handled in a different way.

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package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "log"
    "net/http"
)

func main() {
    http.HandleFunc("/", ExampleHandler)
    if err := http.ListenAndServe(":8080", nil); err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }
}

func ExampleHandler(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {

    // Double check it's a post request being made
    if r.Method != http.MethodPost {
        w.WriteHeader(http.StatusMethodNotAllowed)
        fmt.Fprintf(w, "invalid_http_method")
        return
    }

    // Must call ParseForm() before working with data
    r.ParseForm()

    // Log all data. Form is a map[]
    log.Println(r.Form)

    // Print the data back. We can use Form.Get() or Form["name"][0]
    fmt.Fprintf(w, "Hello "+r.Form.Get("name"))
}

parse post params in golang

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Image of Author Edd Turtle

Author:  Edd Turtle

Edd is the Lead Developer at Hoowla, a prop-tech startup, where he spends much of his time working on production-ready Go and PHP code. He loves coding, but also enjoys cycling and camping in his spare time.

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