Go tool to modify/update field tags in structs. gomodifytags makes it easy to
update, add or delete the tags in a struct field. You can easily add new tags,
update existing tags (such as appending a new key, i.e: db, xml, etc..) or
remove existing tags. It also allows you to add and remove tag options. It's
intended to be used by an editor, but also has modes to run it from the
terminal. Read the usage section below for more information.
go install github.com/fatih/gomodifytags@latest- vim-go with
:GoAddTagsand:GoRemoveTags - go-plus (atom) with commands
golang:add-tagsandgolang:remove-tags - vscode-go with commands
Go: Add TagsandGo: Remove Tags - A (Acme) with commands
addtagsandrmtags - emacs-go-tag with commands
go-tag-addandgo-tag-remove - TextMate2
gomodifytags has multiple ways to modify a tag. Let's start with an example package:
package main
type Server struct {
Name string
Port int
EnableLogs bool
BaseDomain string
Credentials struct {
Username string
Password string
}
}We have to first pass a file. For that we can use the -file flag:
$ gomodifytags -file demo.go
-line, -offset, -struct or -all is not passedWhat are these? There are four different ways of defining which field tags to change:
-struct: This accepts the struct name. i.e:-struct Server. The name should be a valid type name. The-structflag selects the whole struct, and thus it will operate on all fields.-field: This accepts a field name. i.e:-field Address. Useful to select a certain field. The name should be a valid field name. The-structflag is required.-offset: This accepts a byte offset of the file. Useful for editors to pass the position under the cursor. i.e:-offset 548. The offset has to be inside a valid struct. The-offsetselects the whole struct. If you need more granular option see-line-line: This accepts a string that defines the line or lines of which fields should be changed. I.e:-line 4or-line 5,8-all: This is a boolean. The-allflag selects all structs of the given file.
Let's continue by using the -struct tag:
$ gomodifytags -file demo.go -struct Server
one of [-add-tags, -add-options, -remove-tags, -remove-options, -clear-tags, -clear-options] should be defined
There are many options on how you can change the struct. Let us start by adding
tags. The following will add the json key to all fields. The value will be
automatically inherited from the field name and transformed to snake_case:
$ gomodifytags -file demo.go -struct Server -add-tags json
package main
type Server struct {
Name string `json:"name"`
Port int `json:"port"`
EnableLogs bool `json:"enable_logs"`
BaseDomain string `json:"base_domain"`
Credentials struct {
Username string `json:"username"`
Password string `json:"password"`
} `json:"credentials"`
}By default changes will be printed to stdout and can be used for dry-run your
changes before making destructive changes. If you want to change it permanently,
pass the -w (write) flag.
$ gomodifytags -file demo.go -struct Server -add-tags json -w
You can disable printing the results to stdout with the --quiet flag:
$ gomodifytags -file demo.go -struct Server -add-tags json -w --quiet
You can pass multiple keys to add tags. The following will add json and xml
keys:
$ gomodifytags -file demo.go -struct Server -add-tags json,xml
package main
type Server struct {
Name string `json:"name" xml:"name"`
Port int `json:"port" xml:"port"`
EnableLogs bool `json:"enable_logs" xml:"enable_logs"`
BaseDomain string `json:"base_domain" xml:"base_domain"`
Credentials struct {
Username string `json:"username" xml:"username"`
Password string `json:"password" xml:"password"`
} `json:"credentials" xml:"credentials"`
}The default transformation is snake_case when using the gomodifytags command
and when calling Apply() - see section below for more information about Apply().
If you prefer to use camelCase instead of snake_case for the values, you
can use the -transform flag to define a different transformation rule. The
following example uses the camelcase transformation rule:
$ gomodifytags -file demo.go -struct Server -add-tags json,xml -transform camelcase
package main
type Server struct {
Name string `json:"name" xml:"name"`
Port int `json:"port" xml:"port"`
EnableLogs bool `json:"enableLogs" xml:"enableLogs"`
BaseDomain string `json:"baseDomain" xml:"baseDomain"`
Credentials struct {
Username string `json:"username" xml:"username"`
Password string `json:"password" xml:"password"`
} `json:"credentials" xml:"credentials"`
}By default a struct tag's value is transformed from a struct's field and used
directly. As an example for the field Server string, we generate a tag in the
form: json:"server" (assuming -add-tags=json is used).
However, some third party libraries use tags in a different way and might
require to them to have a particular formatting, such as is the case of
prefixing them (field_name=<your_value>). The --template flag allows you to
specify a custom format for the tag value to be applied.
$ gomodifytags -file demo.go -struct Server -add-tags gaum -template "field_name={field}"
package main
type Server struct {
Name string `gaum:"field_name=name"`
Port int `gaum:"field_name=port"`
EnableLogs bool `gaum:"field_name=enableLogs"`
BaseDomain string `gaum:"field_name=baseDomain"`
}The {field} word is a special keyword that is replaced by the struct tag's value
after the transformation.
We currently support the following transformations:
snakecase:"BaseDomain"->"base_domain"camelcase:"BaseDomain"->"baseDomain"lispcase:"BaseDomain"->"base-domain"pascalcase:"BaseDomain"->"BaseDomain"titlecase:"BaseDomain"->"Base Domain"keep: keeps the original field name
You can also pass a static value for each fields. This is useful if you use Go
packages that validates the struct fields or extract values for certain
operations. The following example adds the json key, a validate key with
the value set to gt=1 and the scope key with the value read-only:
$ gomodifytags -file demo.go -struct Server -add-tags json,validate:gt=1,scope:read-only
package main
type Server struct {
Name string `json:"name" validate:"gt=1" scope:"read-only"`
Port int `json:"port" validate:"gt=1" scope:"read-only"`
EnableLogs bool `json:"enable_logs" validate:"gt=1" scope:"read-only"`
BaseDomain string `json:"base_domain" validate:"gt=1" scope:"read-only"`
Credentials struct {
Username string `json:"username" validate:"gt=1" scope:"read-only"`
Password string `json:"password" validate:"gt=1" scope:"read-only"`
} `json:"credentials" validate:"gt=1" scope:"read-only"`
}To add options to for a given key, we use the -add-options flag. In the
example below we're going to add the json key and the omitempty option to
all json keys:
$ gomodifytags -file demo.go -struct Server -add-tags json -add-options json=omitempty
package main
type Server struct {
Name string `json:"name,omitempty"`
Port int `json:"port,omitempty"`
EnableLogs bool `json:"enable_logs,omitempty"`
BaseDomain string `json:"base_domain,omitempty"`
Credentials struct {
Username string `json:"username,omitempty"`
Password string `json:"password,omitempty"`
} `json:"credentials,omitempty"`
}If the key already exists you don't have to use -add-tags
By default all fields are processed. This main reason for this is to allow
structs to evolve with time and be ready in case a field is exported in the
future. However if you don't like this behavior, you can skip it by passing the
--skip-unexported flag:
$ gomodifytags -file demo.go -struct Server -add-tags json --skip-unexported
package main
type Server struct {
Name string `json:"name"`
Port int `json:"port"`
enableLogs bool
baseDomain string
}Let's continue with removing tags. We're going to use the following simple package:
package main
type Server struct {
Name string `json:"name,omitempty" xml:"name,attr,cdata"`
Port int `json:"port,omitempty" xml:"port,attr,cdata"`
EnableLogs bool `json:"enable_logs,omitempty" xml:"enable_logs,attr,cdata"`
BaseDomain string `json:"base_domain,omitempty" xml:"base_domain,attr,cdata"`
Credentials struct {
Username string `json:"username,omitempty" xml:"username,attr,cdata"`
Password string `json:"password,omitempty" xml:"password,attr,cdata"`
} `json:"credentials,omitempty" xml:"credentials,attr,cdata"`
}To remove the xml tags, we're going to use the -remove-tags flag:
$ gomodifytags -file demo.go -struct Server -remove-tags xml
package main
type Server struct {
Name string `json:"name"`
Port int `json:"port"`
EnableLogs bool `json:"enable_logs"`
BaseDomain string `json:"base_domain"`
Credentials struct {
Username string `json:"username"`
Password string `json:"password"`
} `json:"credentials"`
}You can also remove multiple tags. The example below removes json and xml:
$ gomodifytags -file demo.go -struct Server -remove-tags json,xml
package main
type Server struct {
Name string
Port int
EnableLogs bool
BaseDomain string
Credentials struct {
Username string
Password string
}
}If you want to remove all keys, we can also use the -clear-tags flag. This
flag removes all tags and doesn't require to explicitly pass the key names:
$ gomodifytags -file demo.go -struct Server -clear-tags
package main
type Server struct {
Name string
Port int
EnableLogs bool
BaseDomain string
Credentials struct {
Username string
Password string
}
}To remove any option, we can use the -remove-options flag. The following will
remove all omitempty flags from the json key:
$ gomodifytags -file demo.go -struct Server -remove-options json=omitempty
package main
type Server struct {
Name string `json:"name" xml:"name,attr,cdata"`
Port int `json:"port" xml:"port,attr,cdata"`
EnableLogs bool `json:"enable_logs" xml:"enable_logs,attr,cdata"`
BaseDomain string `json:"base_domain" xml:"base_domain,attr,cdata"`
Credentials struct {
Username string `json:"username" xml:"username,attr,cdata"`
Password string `json:"password" xml:"password,attr,cdata"`
} `json:"credentials" xml:"credentials,attr,cdata"`
}To remove multiple options from multiple tags just add another options:
$ gomodifytags -file demo.go -struct Server -remove-options json=omitempty,xml=cdata
package main
type Server struct {
Name string `json:"name" xml:"name,attr"`
Port int `json:"port" xml:"port,attr"`
EnableLogs bool `json:"enable_logs" xml:"enable_logs,attr"`
BaseDomain string `json:"base_domain" xml:"base_domain,attr"`
Credentials struct {
Username string `json:"username" xml:"username,attr"`
Password string `json:"password" xml:"password,attr"`
} `json:"credentials" xml:"credentials,attr"`
}To remove multiple options from the same tag, you can repeat the tag name. For example:
$ gomodifytags -file demo.go -struct Server -remove-options json=first_option,json=other_option
Lastly, to remove all options without explicitly defining the keys and names,
we can use the -clear-options flag. The following example will remove all
options for the given struct:
$ gomodifytags -file demo.go -struct Server -clear-options
package main
type Server struct {
Name string `json:"name" xml:"name"`
Port int `json:"port" xml:"port"`
EnableLogs bool `json:"enable_logs" xml:"enable_logs"`
BaseDomain string `json:"base_domain" xml:"base_domain"`
Credentials struct {
Username string `json:"username" xml:"username"`
Password string `json:"password" xml:"password"`
} `json:"credentials" xml:"credentials"`
}So far all examples used the -struct flag. However we also can pass the line
numbers to only change certain files. Suppose we only want to remove the tags
for the Credentials struct (including the fields) for the following code (lines are included):
01 package main
02
03 type Server struct {
04 Name string `json:"name" xml:"name"`
05 Port int `json:"port" xml:"port"`
06 EnableLogs bool `json:"enable_logs" xml:"enable_logs"`
07 BaseDomain string `json:"base_domain" xml:"base_domain"`
08 Credentials struct {
09 Username string `json:"username" xml:"username"`
10 Password string `json:"password" xml:"password"`
11 } `json:"credentials" xml:"credentials"`
12 }To remove the tags for the credentials we're going to pass the -line flag:
$ gomodifytags -file demo.go -line 8,11 -clear-tags xml
package main
type Server struct {
Name string `json:"name" xml:"name"`
Port int `json:"port" xml:"port"`
EnableLogs bool `json:"enable_logs" xml:"enable_logs"`
BaseDomain string `json:"base_domain" xml:"base_domain"`
Credentials struct {
Username string
Password string
}
}For removing the xml tags for certain lines, we can use the -remove-tags
field. The following example will remove the xml tags for the lines 6 and 7
(fields with names of EnableLogs and BaseDomain):
$ gomodifytags -file demo.go -line 6,7 -remove-tags xml
package main
type Server struct {
Name string `json:"name" xml:"name"`
Port int `json:"port" xml:"port"`
EnableLogs bool `json:"enable_logs"`
BaseDomain string `json:"base_domain"`
Credentials struct {
Username string `json:"username" xml:"username"`
Password string `json:"password" xml:"password"`
} `json:"credentials" xml:"credentials"`
}The same logic applies to adding tags or any other option as well. To add the
bson tag to the lines between 5 and 7, we can use the following example:
$ gomodifytags -file demo.go -line 5,7 -add-tags bson
package main
type Server struct {
Name string `json:"name" xml:"name"`
Port int `json:"port" xml:"port" bson:"port"`
EnableLogs bool `json:"enable_logs" xml:"enable_logs" bson:"enable_logs"`
BaseDomain string `json:"base_domain" xml:"base_domain" bson:"base_domain"`
Credentials struct {
Username string `json:"username" xml:"username"`
Password string `json:"password" xml:"password"`
} `json:"credentials" xml:"credentials"`
}In addition to the command line execution, gomodifytags is also available
as a library modifytags, with a single method Apply.
This method applies the struct tag modification of the receiver to all struct fields contained within a given node between given start and end positions.
Editors can use the tool by calling the tool and then either replace the buffer
with the stdout or use the -w flag.
Also -line and -offset flags should be preferred to be used with editors.
An editor can select a range of lines and then pass it to -line flag. The
editor also can pass the offset under the cursor if it's inside the struct to
-offset
Editors also can use the -format flag to output a json output with the
changed lines. This is useful if you want to explicitly replace the buffer with
the given lines. For the file below:
package main
type Server struct {
Name string
Port int
EnableLogs bool
BaseDomain string
Credentials struct {
Username string
Password string
}
}If we add the xml tag and tell to output the format in json with the
-format flag, the following will be printed:
$ gomodifytags -file demo.go -struct Server -add-tags xml -format json
{
"start": 3,
"end": 12,
"lines": [
"type Server struct {",
"\tName string `xml:\"name\"`",
"\tPort int `xml:\"port\"`",
"\tEnableLogs bool `xml:\"enable_logs\"`",
"\tBaseDomain string `xml:\"base_domain\"`",
"\tCredentials struct {",
"\t\tUsername string `xml:\"username\"`",
"\t\tPassword string `xml:\"password\"`",
"\t} `xml:\"credentials\"`",
"}"
]
}The output is defined with the following Go struct:
type output struct {
Start int `json:"start"`
End int `json:"end"`
Lines []string `json:"lines"`
}The start and end specifies the positions in the file the lines will
apply. With this information, you can replace the editor buffer by iterating
over the lines and set it for the given range. An example how it's done in
vim-go in Vimscript is:
let index = 0
for line_number in range(start, end)
call setline(line_number, lines[index])
let index += 1
endforEditors can supply gomodifytags with the contents of unsaved buffers by using
the -modified flag and writing an archive to stdin. Files in the archive
will be preferred over those on disk.
Each archive entry consists of:
- the file name, followed by a newline
- the (decimal) file size, followed by a newline
- the contents of the file
At least Go v1.11.x is required. Older versions might work, but it's not
recommended. First, checkout the repository:
git clone https://github.com/fatih/gomodifytags.git
Start developing the code. To build a binary, execute:
go build
This will create a gomodifytags binary in the current directory. To test the
package, run the following:
go test -v
If everything works fine, feel free to open a pull request with your changes.