How to send JSON body in GET request golang?

Question

There is no "body" field in documentation for http.Client.Get

GET and DELETE requests do not have body. If you need to send a body, use PUT, POST, PATCH — Burak Serdar, Jul 23 '20 at 15:07
@Flimzy, I'm inclined to think the linked answer, while definitely useful, does not answer the essense of the question: broken services (usually software developed in house) do exist, and I'd not be too surprised to find out the OP really needs to send a body in a GET request because it's what their target service _wants._ I would reopen the question. — kostix, Jul 23 '20 at 15:12
Though, if the problem is that there's an in-house server using broken standards, then creating an in-house client using broken standards means there are now two problems. Fixing the server would be the better long-term approach. — David, Jul 23 '20 at 15:17

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 23 '20 at 15:15

Sending a body with a GET request is not supported by HTTP. See this Q&A for full details. But if you really want to do this, even though you know it's wrong, you can do it this way:

iKnowThisBodyShouldBeIgnored := strings.NewReader("text that won't mean anything")
req, err := http.NewRequest(http.MethodGet, "http://example.com/foo", iKnowThisBodyShouldBeIgnored)
if err != nil {
    panic(err)
}
res, err := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)

score 3 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 07 '21 at 10:53

Do not send body in a GET request: an explanation.

RFC 7231 says the following:

A payload within a GET request message has no defined semantics; sending a payload body on a GET request might cause some existing implementations to reject the request.
If you must, do not use net/http.Get as it's just a convenience function.
Instead, go one level deeper and construct a proper http.Request which then perform by calling the Do method on an instance of http.Client (the http.DefaultClient should be just fine).

How to send JSON body in GET request golang?

2 Answers2