Custom BSON marshal and unmarshal using mongo-driver

Question

I have a struct field like this below. I also store raw protobuf of the same struct in db. Now every time fetch or save data to mongo. I have to update ReallyBigRaw, from the proto when I want to save to DB and when fetch I have to unmarshal ReallyBigRaw to ReallyBigObj to give out responses. Is there a way I can implement some interface or provide some callback functions so that the mongo driver does this automatically before saving or fetching data from DB.

Also, I am using the offical golang mongo driver not mgo, I have read some answers where can be done in mgo golang library.

import (
    "github.com/golang/protobuf/jsonpb"
    "go.mongodb.org/mongo-driver/bson"
    "go.mongodb.org/mongo-driver/bson/primitive"

    proto "github.com/dinesh/api/go"
)

type ReallyBig struct {
    ID           string                 `bson:"_id,omitempty"`
    DraftID      string                 `bson:"draft_id,omitempty"`
// Marshaled ReallyBigObj proto to map[string]interface{} stored in DB
    ReallyBigRaw map[string]interface{} `bson:"raw,omitempty"`
    ReallyBigObj *proto.ReallyBig       `bson:"-"`
    CreatedAt    primitive.DateTime     `bson:"created_at,omitempty"`
    UpdatedAt    primitive.DateTime     `bson:"updated_at,omitempty"`
}

func (r *ReallyBig) GetProto() (*proto.ReallyBig, error) {
    if r.ReallyBigObj != nil {
        return r.ReallyBigObj, nil
    }
    Obj, err := getProto(r.ReallyBigRaw)
    if err != nil {
        return nil, err
    }
    r.ReallyBigObj = Obj
    return r.ReallyBigObj, nil
}

func getRaw(r *proto.ReallyBig) (map[string]interface{}, error) {
    m := jsonpb.Marshaler{}
    b := bytes.NewBuffer([]byte{})

    // marshals proto to json format
    err := m.Marshal(b, r)
    if err != nil {
        return nil, err
    }
    var raw map[string]interface{}
    // unmarshal the raw data to an interface
    err = json.Unmarshal(b.Bytes(), &raw)
    if err != nil {
        return nil, err
    }
    return raw, nil
}

func getProto(raw map[string]interface{}) (*proto.ReallyBig, error) {
    b, err := json.Marshal(raw)
    if err != nil {
        return nil, err
    }
    u := jsonpb.Unmarshaler{}
    var reallyBigProto proto.ReallyBig
    err = u.Unmarshal(bytes.NewReader(b), &recipeProto)
    if err != nil {
        return nil, err
    }
    return &reallyBigProto, nil
}

`bson.Marshaler` and `bson.Unmarshaler` work with the official driver too. Another way is using coders and decoders, for an example see [How to ignore nulls while unmarshalling a MongoDB document?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/58984435/how-to-ignore-nulls-while-unmarshalling-a-mongodb-document/58985629#58985629) — icza, Nov 06 '20 at 11:38
Thanks a ton. The example talks about handling types. But in my case I just need the raw field to be updated with the current proto state and then let mongo take care of marshaling to DB and when unmarshaling from DB, just fill proto from that raw. An example would really help. — Dinesh Gowda, Nov 06 '20 at 11:47

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 07 '20 at 03:56

I implemented the Marshaler and Unmarshaler interface. Since mongo driver calls MarshalBSON and UnmarshalBSON if the type implements Marshaler and Unmarshaler we also end up in infinite loop. To avoid that we create a Alias of the type. Alias in Golang inherit only the fields not the methods so we end up calling normal bson.Marshal and bson.Unmarshal

func (r *ReallyBig) MarshalBSON() ([]byte, error) {
    type ReallyBigAlias ReallyBig
    reallyBigRaw, err := getRaw(r.ReallyBigObj)
    if err != nil {
        return nil, err
    }
    r.ReallyBigRaw = reallyBigRaw
    return bson.Marshal((*ReallyBigAlias)(r))
}

func (r *ReallyBig) UnmarshalBSON(data []byte) error {
    type ReallyBigAlias ReallyBig
    err := bson.Unmarshal(data, (*ReallyBigAlias)(r))
    if err != nil {
        return err
    }
    reallyBigProto, err := getProto(r.ReallyBigRaw)
    if err != nil {
        return err
    }
    r.ReallyBigObj = reallyBigProto
    return nil
}

Custom BSON marshal and unmarshal using mongo-driver

1 Answers1