Updating README.md with Additional Information section.

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Maxime Delporte
2025-10-12 20:34:59 +02:00
parent cb3691ce04
commit 1b886109be

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@@ -43,3 +43,32 @@ There are two comon approaches to doing this :
2. By using custom **Accept** and **Content-Type** headers on requests and responses to convey the API version, like **Accept: application/vnd.greenlight-v1**
From an HTTP semantics point of view, using headers to convey the API version is the 'purer' approach. But from a user-experience point of view, using a URL prefix is arguably better. It makes it possible for developers to see which version of the API is being used at a glance, and it also means that the API can still be explored using a regular web browser (which is harder if custom headers are required).
## Additional Information
### How different Go Types are encoded
The following table summarizes how different Go types are mapped to JSON data types during encoding :
| Go type | JSON type |
|---------------------------------------------------|----------------------------|
| bool | JSON boolean |
| string | JSON string |
| int*, uint*, float*, rune | JSON number |
| array, slice | JSON array |
| struct, map | JSON object |
| nil pointers, interface values, slices, maps, etc | JSON null |
| chan, func, complex* | Not supported |
| time.Time | RFC3339-format JSON string |
| []byte | Base64-encoded JSON string |
|
The last two of these are special cases which deserve a bit more explanation :
- Go **time.Time** values (which are actually a struct behind the scenes) will be encoded as a JSON string in RFC 3339 format like **"2020-11-08T06:27:59+01:00"**, rather than as a JSON object.
- A **[]byte** slice will be encoded as a base64-encoded JSON string, rather than as a JSON array. So, for example, a byte slice of **[]byte{'h','e','l','l','o'}** would appear as **"aGVsbG8="** in the JSON output. The base64 encoding uses padding and the standard character set.
A few other important things to mention :
- Encoding of nested objects is supported. So, for example, if you have a slice of structs in Go that will encode to an *array of objects* in JSON.
- Channels, functions and **complex** number types cannot be encoded. If you try to do so, you'll get a **json.UnsupportedTypeError** error at runtime.
- Any pointer values will encode as *the value pointed to*.