How to do it...

The following steps cover the writing and running of your application:

1. From your Terminal or console application, create a new directory called ~/projects/go-programming-cookbook/chapter8/validation, and navigate to this directory.

2. Run the following command:

$ go mod init github.com/PacktPublishing/Go-Programming-Cookbook-Second-Edition/chapter8/validation

You should see a file called go.mod that contains the following:

module github.com/PacktPublishing/Go-Programming-Cookbook-Second-Edition/chapter8/validation    

3. Copy the tests from ~/projects/go-programming-cookbook-original/chapter8/validation, or use this as an exercise to write some of your own code!
4. Create a file called controller.go with the following contents:

        package validation

        // Controller holds our validation functions
        type Controller struct {
            ValidatePayload func(p *Payload) error
        }

        // New initializes a controller with our
        // local validation, it can be overwritten
        func New() *Controller {
            return &Controller{
                ValidatePayload: ValidatePayload,
            }
        }

5. Create a file called validate.go with the following contents:

        package validation

        import "errors"

        // Verror is an error that occurs
        // during validation, we can
        // return this to a user
        type Verror struct {
            error
        }

        // Payload is the value we
        // process
        type Payload struct {
            Name string `json:"name"`
            Age int `json:"age"`
        }

        // ValidatePayload is 1 implementation of
        // the closure in our controller
        func ValidatePayload(p *Payload) error {
            if p.Name == "" {
                return Verror{errors.New("name is required")}
            }

            if p.Age <= 0 || p.Age >= 120 {
                return Verror{errors.New("age is required and must be a 
                value greater than 0 and less than 120")}
            }
            return nil
        }

6. Create a file called process.go with the following contents:

        package validation

        import (
            "encoding/json"
            "fmt"
            "net/http"
        )

        // Process is a handler that validates a post payload
        func (c *Controller) Process(w http.ResponseWriter, r 
        *http.Request) {
            if r.Method != http.MethodPost {
                w.WriteHeader(http.StatusMethodNotAllowed)
                return
            }

            decoder := json.NewDecoder(r.Body)
            defer r.Body.Close()
            var p Payload

            if err := decoder.Decode(&p); err != nil {
                fmt.Println(err)
                w.WriteHeader(http.StatusBadRequest)
                return
            }

            if err := c.ValidatePayload(&p); err != nil {
                switch err.(type) {
                case Verror:
                    w.WriteHeader(http.StatusBadRequest)
                    // pass the Verror along
                    w.Write([]byte(err.Error()))
                    return
                default:
                    w.WriteHeader(http.StatusInternalServerError)
                    return
                }
            }
        }

7. Create a new directory named example and navigate to it.
8. Create a file called main.go with the following contents:

        package main

        import (
            "fmt"
            "net/http"

            "github.com/PacktPublishing/
             Go-Programming-Cookbook-Second-Edition/
             chapter8/validation"
        )

        func main() {
            c := validation.New()
            http.HandleFunc("/", c.Process)
            fmt.Println("Listening on port :3333")
            err := http.ListenAndServe(":3333", nil)
            panic(err)
        }

9. Run go run main.go.
10. You could also run the following:

$ go build
$ ./example

You should see the following output:

$ go run main.go
Listening on port :3333

11. In a separate Terminal, run the following commands:

$ curl "http://localhost:3333/" -X POST -d '{}'
$ curl "http://localhost:3333/" -X POST -d '{"name":"test"}' 
$ curl "http://localhost:3333/" -X POST -d '{"name":"test",
  "age": 5}' -v

You should see the following output:

$ curl "http://localhost:3333/" -X POST -d '{}'
name is required

$ curl "http://localhost:3333/" -X POST -d '{"name":"test"}'
age is required and must be a value greater than 0 and 
less than 120

$ curl "http://localhost:3333/" -X POST -d '{"name":"test",
"age": 5}' -v

<lots of output, should contain a 200 OK status code>

12. The go.mod file may be updated and the go.sum file should now be present in the top-level recipe directory.
13. If you copied or wrote your own tests, go up one directory and run go test. Ensure that all tests pass.