Don - Go API Framework

Don is a fast & simple API framework written in Go. It features a super-simple API and thanks to fasthttp and a custom version of httprouter it's blazing fast and has a low memory footprint.

As Don uses Go generics it requires Go 1.18 to work.
Minor version updates should be considered breaking changes.

Contents

• Overview
  • Basic Example
  • Configuration
  • Support multiple formats
    • Currently supported formats
    • Adding custom encoding
  • Request parsing
  • Headers & response codes
  • Sub-routers
  • Middleware
  • Benchmarks

Basic Example

package main

import (
  "context"
  "errors"
  "fmt"
  "net/http"

  "github.com/abemedia/go-don"
  _ "github.com/abemedia/go-don/encoding/json" // Enable JSON parsing & rendering.
  _ "github.com/abemedia/go-don/encoding/yaml" // Enable YAML parsing & rendering.
)

type GreetRequest struct {
  Name string `path:"name"`         // Get name from the URL path.
  Age  int    `header:"X-User-Age"` // Get age from HTTP header.
}

type GreetResponse struct {
  // Remember to add all the tags for the renderers you enable.
  Greeting string `json:"data" yaml:"data"`
}

func Greet(ctx context.Context, req GreetRequest) (*GreetResponse, error) {
  if req.Name == "" {
    return nil, don.Error(errors.New("missing name"), http.StatusBadRequest)
  }

  res := &GreetResponse{
    Greeting: fmt.Sprintf("Hello %s, you're %d years old.", req.Name, req.Age),
  }

  return res, nil
}

func Pong(context.Context, any) (string, error) {
  return "pong", nil
}

func main() {
  r := don.New(nil)
  r.Get("/ping", don.H(Pong)) // Handlers are wrapped with `don.H`.
  r.Post("/greet/:name", don.H(Greet))
  r.ListenAndServe(":8080")
}

Configuration

Don is configured by passing in the Config struct to don.New.

r := don.New(&don.Config{
  DefaultEncoding: "application/json",
  DisableNoContent: false,
})

DefaultEncoding

Set this to the format you'd like to use if no Content-Type or Accept headers are in the request.

DisableNoContent

If you return nil from your handler, Don will respond with an empty body and a 204 No Content status code. Set this to true to disable that behaviour.

Support multiple formats

Support multiple request & response formats without writing extra parsing or rendering code. The API uses the Content-Type and Accept headers to determine what input and output encoding to use.

You can mix multiple formats, for example if the Content-Type header is set to application/json, however the Accept header is set to application/x-yaml, then the request will be parsed as JSON, and the response will be YAML encoded.

If no Content-Type or Accept header is passed the default will be used.

Formats need to be explicitly imported e.g.

import _ "github.com/abemedia/go-don/encoding/yaml"

Currently supported formats

JSON

MIME: application/json

Parses JSON requests & encodes responses as JSON. Use the json tag in your request & response structs.

XML

MIME: application/xml, text/xml

Parses XML requests & encodes responses as XML. Use the xml tag in your request & response structs.

YAML

MIME: application/yaml, text/yaml, application/x-yaml, text/x-yaml, text/vnd.yaml

Parses YAML requests & encodes responses as YAML. Use the yaml tag in your request & response structs.

Form (input only)

MIME: application/x-www-form-urlencoded, multipart/form-data

Parses form data requests. Use the form tag in your request struct.

Text

MIME: text/plain

Parses non-struct requests and encodes non-struct responses e.g. string, int, bool etc.

func MyHandler(ctx context.Context, req int64) (string, error) {
  // ...
}

If the request is a struct and the Content-Type header is set to text/plain it returns a 415 Unsupported Media Type error.

MessagePack

MIME: application/msgpack, application/x-msgpack, application/vnd.msgpack

Parses MessagePack requests & encodes responses as MessagePack. Use the msgpack tag in your request & response structs.

TOML

MIME: application/toml

Parses TOML requests & encodes responses as TOML. Use the toml tag in your request & response structs.

Protocol Buffers

MIME: application/protobuf, application/x-protobuf

Parses protobuf requests & encodes responses as protobuf. Use pointer types generated with protoc as your request & response structs.

Adding custom encoding

Adding your own is easy. See encoding/json/json.go.

Request parsing

Automatically unmarshals values from headers, URL query, URL path & request body into your request struct.

type MyRequest struct {
  // Get from the URL path.
  ID int64 `path:"id"`

  // Get from the URL query.
  Filter string `query:"filter"`

  // Get from the JSON, YAML, XML or form body.
  Content float64 `form:"bar" json:"bar" yaml:"bar" xml:"bar"`

  // Get from the HTTP header.
  Lang string `header:"Accept-Language"`
}

Please note that using a pointer as the request type negatively affects performance.

Headers & response codes

Implement the StatusCoder and Headerer interfaces to customise headers and response codes.

type MyResponse struct {
  Foo  string `json:"foo"`
}

// Set a custom HTTP response code.
func (nr *MyResponse) StatusCode() int {
  return 201
}

// Add custom headers to the response.
func (nr *MyResponse) Header() http.Header {
  header := http.Header{}
  header.Set("foo", "bar")
  return header
}

Sub-routers

You can create sub-routers using the Group function:

r := don.New(nil)
sub := r.Group("/api")
sub.Get("/hello", don.H(Hello))

Middleware

Don uses the standard fasthttp middleware format of func(fasthttp.RequestHandler) fasthttp.RequestHandler.

For example:

func loggingMiddleware(next fasthttp.RequestHandler) fasthttp.RequestHandler {
  return func(ctx *fasthttp.RequestCtx) {
    log.Println(string(ctx.RequestURI()))
    next(ctx)
  }
}

It is registered on a router using Use e.g.

r := don.New(nil)
r.Post("/", don.H(handler))
r.Use(loggingMiddleware)

Middleware registered on a group only applies to routes in that group and child groups.

r := don.New(nil)
r.Get("/login", don.H(loginHandler))
r.Use(loggingMiddleware) // applied to all routes

api := r.Group("/api")
api.Get("/hello", don.H(helloHandler))
api.Use(authMiddleware) // applied to routes `/api/hello` and `/api/v2/bye`


v2 := api.Group("/v2")
v2.Get("/bye", don.H(byeHandler))
v2.Use(corsMiddleware) // only applied to `/api/v2/bye`

To pass values from the middleware to the handler extend the context e.g.

func myMiddleware(next fasthttp.RequestHandler) fasthttp.RequestHandler {
  return func(ctx *fasthttp.RequestCtx) {
    ctx.SetUserValue(ContextUserKey, "my_user")
    next(ctx)
  }
}

This can now be accessed in the handler:

user := ctx.Value(ContextUserKey).(string)

Benchmarks

To give you a rough idea of Don's performance, here is a comparison with Gin.

Request Parsing

Don has extremely fast & efficient binding of request data.

Benchmark name	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
BenchmarkDon_BindRequest	2947474	390.3 ns/op	72 B/op	2 allocs/op
BenchmarkGin_BindRequest	265609	4377 ns/op	1193 B/op	21 allocs/op

Source: benchmarks/binding_test.go

Serving HTTP Requests

Keep in mind that the majority of time here is actually the HTTP roundtrip.

Benchmark name	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
BenchmarkDon_HTTP	45500	25384 ns/op	32 B/op	3 allocs/op
BenchmarkGin_HTTP	22995	49865 ns/op	2313 B/op	21 allocs/op

Source: benchmarks/http_test.go