Other ways of verifying reflect.Type for int and float64

Question

In golang, a number in JSON message is always parsed into float64. In order to detect if it is actually integer, I am using reflect.TypeOf() to check its type. Unfo

Answer 1

You may also use the Value.Kind() or Type.Kind() method whose possible values are listed as constants in the reflect package, at the doc of the Kind type.

myType := reflect.TypeOf(myVar)
if k := myType.Kind(); k == reflect.Int {
    fmt.Println("It's of type int")
} else if k == reflect.Float64 {
    fmt.Println("It's of type float64")
}

You can also use it in a switch:

switch myType.Kind() {
case reflect.Int:
    fmt.Println("int")
case reflect.Float64:
    fmt.Println("float64")
default:
    fmt.Println("Some other type")
}

Note that both reflect.Type and reflect.Value has a Kind() method, so you can use it if you start with reflect.ValueOf(myVar) and also if you start with reflect.TypeOf(myVar).

Answer 2

To check if interface is of a specific type you can use type assertion with two return values, the second return value is a boolean indicating if the variable is of the type specified. And unlike with a single return value, it will not panic if the variable is of a wrong type.

if v, ok := myVar.(int); ok {
    // type assertion succeeded and v is myVar asserted to type int
} else {
    // type assertion failed, myVar wasn't an int
}

If there's more types that you need to check then using a type switch is a good idea:

switch v := myVar.(type) {
case int:
    // v has type int
case float64:
    // v has type float64
default:
    // myVar was something other than int or float64
}

Note however that neither of these actually solve your problem, because like you say, numbers in JSON documents are always parsed into float64s. So if myVar is a parsed JSON number, it will always have type of float64 instead of int.

To solve this, I suggest you use the UseNumber() method of the json.Decoder, which causes the decoder to parse numbers as type Number, instead of float64. Take a look at https://golang.org/pkg/encoding/json/#Number

// Assume myVar is a value decoded with json.Decoder with UseNumber() called

if n, ok := myVar.(json.Number); ok {
    // myVar was a number, let's see if its float64 or int64
    // Check for int64 first because floats can be parsed as ints but not the other way around
    if v, err := n.Int64(); err != nil {
        // The number was an integer, v has type of int64
    }
    if v, err := n.Float64(); err != nil {
        // The number was a float, v has type of float64
    }
} else {
    // myVar wasn't a number at all
}