Comment 1:

The problem is that the data isn't correctly written by xml.Marshal in the first place.
It seems the "parent>child" form in the struct tag doesn't work with xml.Marshal. The
program xmltest1.go generates invalid xml for this data structure:
 Result struct {
    // other fields omitted
    Groups  []string `xml:"group>value"`
}
<result>...omitted...<group>value>Friends</group>value><group>value>Squash</group>value></result>
When I manually fix up the invalid tags here, xml.Unmarshal correctly loads the contents
of the value elements into the Groups slice.

Status changed to Accepted.

Comment 2:

The summary name change is wrong. If you try xmltest2.go you will see that it does not
use the "parent>child" syntax -- and yet it still fails to work correctly.
So perhaps this should be split into two separate bugs?

Comment 3:

I ran into this problem myself, and I wrote a quick patch for it.  It works for my needs.
http://golang.org/cl/4941042

Comment 4:

This issue was closed by revision 4541fa9.

Status changed to Fixed.