Encode a struct with ",remain" back to a map?

[kszafran]

I have a use case where I need to decode a JSON, where I care only about a few fields, change it here and there, and then serialize it back to JSON. However, the remainder values seem to get serialized into an empty "" JSON field. This is my code:

func TestDecodeEncode(t *testing.T) {
	var stuff struct {
		Field string                 `mapstructure:"field"`
		Other map[string]interface{} `mapstructure:",remain"`
	}
	err := Decode(strings.NewReader(`{
		"field": "hello",
		"anotherField": "world"
	}`), &stuff)
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	bs, err := Encode(stuff)
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	fmt.Printf("%s\n", bs)
}

func Decode(r io.Reader, result interface{}) error {
	var m interface{}
	if err := json.NewDecoder(r).Decode(&m); err != nil {
		return err
	}
	return mapstructure.Decode(m, result)
}

func Encode(v interface{}) ([]byte, error) {
	var m map[string]interface{}
	if err := mapstructure.Decode(v, &m); err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	return json.Marshal(m)
}

And the output is:

{"":{"anotherField":"world"},"field":"hello"}

Am I missing some configuration option or is remain just not supported when encoding a struct into a map?

I'm using mapstructure version v1.4.3.

[kszafran]

For now I'm using this simple workaround:

func Encode(v interface{}) ([]byte, error) {
	var m map[string]interface{}
	if err := mapstructure.Decode(v, &m); err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	expandRemainderValues(m)
	return json.Marshal(m)
}

func expandRemainderValues(m map[string]interface{}) {
	for k, v := range m {
		v, ok := v.(map[string]interface{})
		if !ok {
			continue
		}
		if k == "" {
			for remainderK, remainderV := range v {
				m[remainderK] = remainderV
			}
			delete(m, "")
		} else {
			expandRemainderValues(v)
		}
	}
}

[kszafran]

Looks like the behavior has changed in 1.5.0. Now my Other fields are serialized not as "", but as "Other". (It doesn't solve the problem of course, but requires changing the workaround.)

[mitchellh]

Yeah, there was a bug fixed in 1.5.0 that caused some struct fields to get an empty string in the map. So you're seeing that fix, while still retaining your bug. We just need to turn your repro into a test case, and get a fix on top of it.

[tschaub]

#307 looks like a nice fix for this issue.

[Arsen204]

@mitchellh can we merge #307? it's a tested by prod fix :)