DEV Community

Cover image for Middlewares in Go
Karan Kumar
Karan Kumar

Posted on

Middlewares in Go

Today we will learn how to implement middlewares in Go and also we will learn how to chain the middlewares in an efficient way without using any third party package.

The code for this can be found here GitHub

Middleware

Middleware is an entity that intercepts the server's request/response life cycle. In simple words, it is a piece of code that runs before/after the server caters to a request with a response.
A middleware can do the following:

  • Process the request before running business logic (authentication)
  • Modify the request to the next handler function (attaching payload)
  • Modify the response for the client
  • Logging.... and much more

Basic Middleware

Let's write a basic route handler

func main() {
    http.Handle("/", handler)
    http.HandleAndServe(":8000", nil)
}

func handler(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
    fmt.Prinln("Executing the handler")
    w.Write([]byte("OK"))
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

This piece of code simply returns "OK" response to the GET request at http://localhost:8000/.

Now let us create a simple middleware that will be a function that intercepts the request -> response lifecycle.

func middleware(originalHandler http.Handler) http.Handler {
    return http.HandlerFunc(func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
        fmt.Println("Running before handler")
        w.Write([]byte("Hijacking Request "))
        originalHandler.Serve(w, r)
        fmt.Println("Running after handler")
    })
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Explanation: This middleware function expects a function (our handler in this case) of type handler and will return a handler after tweaking the request response flow.

So what is does is:

  1. Runs Println function
  2. Writes to the response "Hijacking Request"
  3. Serves the original handler which was passed as an argument
  4. Runs a Println function

Let us hook this up with the main function:

func main() {
    // converting our handler function to handler 
    // type to make use of our middleware 
    myHandler := http.Handlerfunc(handler)
    http.Handle("/", middleware(myHandler)) // πŸ‘ˆ
    http.HandleAndServe(":8000", nil)
}

func handler(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
    fmt.Prinln("Executing the handler")
    w.Write([]byte("OK"))
}

func middleware(originalHandler http.Handler) http.Handler {
  return http.HandlerFunc(func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
        fmt.Println("Running before handler")
        w.Write([]byte("Hijacking Request "))
        originalHandler.Serve(w, r)
        fmt.Println("Running after handler")
  })
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Now if we hit it with a GET request at http://localhost:8000 we will get

Client response:

Hijacking Request OK
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

πŸ‘† This shows the middleware added the response "Hijacking Request" to the original response by the handler, that is "OK".

Server logs:

Running before handler
Executing the handler 
Running after handler 
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Real world example

Now let us take what we have learned and build upon it. This middleware example has two goals:

  1. Write a middleware that makes sure request has Header "Content-Type" application/json
  2. Write a middleware that adds current server time to the reponse cookie

Middleware #1

func filterContentType(handler http.Handler) http.Handler {
  return http.HandlerFunc(func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request){
    if r.Header.Get("Content-Type") != "application/json" {
      w.WriteHeader(http.StatusUnsupportedMediaType)
      w.Write([]byte("405 - Header Content-Type incorrect"))
      return
    }
    handler.ServeHTTP(w, r)
  })
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Middleware #2

func setTimeCookie(handler http.Handler) http.Handler {
  return http.HandlerFunc(func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request){
    // Cookie here is a struct that represents an HTTP
    // cookie as sent in the Set-Cookie header of HTTP request
    cookie := http.Cookie{
      Name: "Server Time (UTC)" // can be anything
      Value: strconv.Itoa(int(time.Now().Unix()))
      // πŸ‘† converted time to string
    }
    // now set the cookie to response 
    http.SetCookie(w, &cookie)
    handler.ServeHTTP(w, r)
  })
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Now let us create a handler to handle the POST request, and then we will use the middlewares:

Handler

type Person struct {
    Firstname string
    Lastname string
}

// main handler 
func postHandler(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
    if r.Method != "POST" {
        w.WriteHeader(http.StatusMethodNotAllowed)
        w.Write([]byte("405 - Method Not Allowed"))
        return
    }

    var p Person
    decoder := json.NewDecoder(r.Body)
    err := decoder.Decode(&p)
    if err != nil {
        w.WriteHeader(http.StatusInternalServerError)
        w.Write([]byte("500 - Internal Server Error"))
        return
    }
    defer r.Body.Close()

    fmt.Printf("Got firstName and lastName as %s, %s",
    p.Firstname, p.Lastname)
    w.WriteHeader(http.StatusOK)
    w.Write([]byte("201 - Created"))
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Now let we will (in the main function):

  • Take the middlewares
  • Chain them together
  • Wrap them around the handler
func main() {
    myHandler := http.HandlerFunc(postHandler)
    chain := filterContentType(setTimeCookie(myHandler)) // πŸ‘ˆ
    http.Handle("/", chain)
    http.ListenAndServe(":8000", nil)
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

filterContentType(setTimeCookie(myHandler))
This will return the handler and run the middlewares in the order:

  1. filterContentType
  2. setTimeCookie
  3. ... and then our handler

Let us test this now:

curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST
http://localhost:8000/city -d '{"firstname": "John", "lastname": "Doe"}'

The server will respond with

201 - Created
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Now let us test the Header middleware

curl -i -X POST http://localhost:8000/city -d '{"firstname": "John", "lastname": "Doe"}'

The server will respond with

415 - Unsupported Media Type
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

That is exactly what we wanted. Also you can use postman or curl command to check if the response has the attached cookie as well. And it will because of the other middleware.

But chaining these middlewares is not a neat process, imagine we had 5 middlewares, the chaining would look like:

chain := m1(m2(m3(m4(m5(handler)))))

πŸ‘† This is not what we want, so let us create our own chaining middleware handling logic.


Chaining Middlewares

Goal is to use chain := m1(m2(m3(m4(m5(handler))))) as chain := CreateChain(m1, m2, m3, m4, m5).Then(handler)

Let us write a pseudo code for that we want to do:

  1. We need a CreateChain function that takes an Slice/List of middlewares

  2. We need a Then function that would be used as a method on Chain type object that will do run : m1(m2(m3(m4(m5(handler)))))

Let us create a struct for a Middleware and Chain (which is slice/list of middleware):

type Middleware func(http.Handler) http.Handler
type Chain []Middleware
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Now let us write function CreateChain

// returns a Slice of middlewares 
func CreateChain(middlewares ...Middleware) Chain {
    var slice Chain
    return append(slice, middlewares...)
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Now let us write function

func (c Chain) Then(originalHandler http.Handler) http.Handler {
    if originalHandler == nil {
        originalHandler = http.DefaultServeMux
    }

    for i := range c {
        // Same as to m1(m2(m3(originalHandler)))
        originalHandler = c[len(c) -1 -i](originalHandler)
    }
    return originalHandler
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

So here, the for loop will loop through each middleware from in the Slice/List of middlewares and keep it wrap itself around the originalHandler passed into the function.

Now we can use this in the main function as:

func main() {
    myHandler := http.HandlerFunc(postHandler)
    chain := CreateChain(filterContentType, setTimeCookie).Then(myHandler) // πŸ‘ˆ
    http.Handle("/", chain)
    http.ListenAndServe(":8000", nil)
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

The code for this can be found here GitHub

I hope that was helpful. Feel free to create a PR on the code repo if you find any issues or improvements.

Top comments (1)

Collapse
 
zeedu_dev profile image
Eduardo Zepeda

Hello! I was reading about middlewares in Go and I stumbled upon your article, which is, by the way, very well explained. Thank you so much for sharing it.

Please let me know if I'm wrong but I think you mistyped:

  • http.ListenAndServe instead of http.HandleAndServe
  • originalHandler.Serve(w, r) instead of originalHandler.ServeHTTP(w, r)

After I changed those lines your code worked like a charm :)
Thank you so much!