Responding to an HTTP Request using Templates

suggest change

Responses can be written to a http.ResponseWriter using templates in Go. This proves as a handy tool if you wish to create dynamic pages.

To learn about templates, see text and html templates chapter.

Continuing with a simple example to utilise the html/template to respond to an HTTP Request:

package main

import(
    "html/template"
    "net/http"
    "log"
)

func main(){
    http.HandleFunc("/",WelcomeHandler)
    http.ListenAndServe(":8080",nil)
}

type User struct{
    Name string
    nationality string //unexported field.
}

func check(err error){
    if err != nil{
        log.Fatal(err)
    }
}

func WelcomeHandler(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request){
    if r.Method == "GET"{
        t,err := template.ParseFiles("welcomeform.html")
        check(err)
        t.Execute(w,nil)
    }else{
        r.ParseForm()
        myUser := User{}
        myUser.Name = r.Form.Get("entered_name")
        myUser.nationality = r.Form.Get("entered_nationality")
        t, err := template.ParseFiles("welcomeresponse.html")
        check(err)
        t.Execute(w,myUser)
    }
}

Where, the contents of

  1. welcomeform.html are:
<head>
    <title> Help us greet you </title>
</head>
<body>
    <form method="POST" action="/">
        Enter Name: <input type="text" name="entered_name">
        Enter Nationality: <input type="text" name="entered_nationality">
        <input type="submit" value="Greet me!">
    </form>
</body>
  1. welcomeresponse.html are:
<head>
    <title> Greetings, {{.Name}} </title>
</head>
<body>
    Greetings, {{.Name}}.<br>
    We know you are a {{.nationality}}!
</body>

Note:

  1. Make sure that the .html files are in the correct directory.
  2. When http://localhost:8080/ can be visited after starting the server.
  3. As it can be seen after submitting the form, the unexported nationality field of the struct could not be parsed by the template package, as expected.

Feedback about page:

Feedback:
Optional: your email if you want me to get back to you:



Table Of Contents