How to Effectively Manage Configuration in Go Applications?

How to Handle Configuration in Go

When developing Go programs, it's common to need a mechanism to manage configuration parameters. Typically, in other contexts, one might turn to properties or INI files for this purpose. In Go, several approaches can be employed.

Recommended Approach: JSON

One preferred approach is to use the JSON format for configuration. Go's standard library provides methods for conveniently writing data structures as indented JSON, making them easy to read and edit. Additionally, JSON offers semantics for lists and mappings, which is not available in all INI-type config parsers.

Here's an example of how to use JSON for configuration:

conf.json:

{
    "Users": ["UserA","UserB"],
    "Groups": ["GroupA"]
}

Go program to read the configuration:

import (
    "encoding/json"
    "os"
    "fmt"
)

type Configuration struct {
    Users    []string
    Groups   []string
}

file, _ := os.Open("conf.json")
defer file.Close()
decoder := json.NewDecoder(file)
configuration := Configuration{}
err := decoder.Decode(&configuration)
if err != nil {
  fmt.Println("error:", err)
}
fmt.Println(configuration.Users) // output: [UserA, UserB]

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