encoding/json: Unmarshal isn't recognizing endashes in keys / struct tags #35287

agocs · 2019-10-31T17:47:49Z

What version of Go are you using (`go version`)?

$ go version
go version go1.13.3 darwin/amd64

Does this issue reproduce with the latest release?

Yep

What operating system and processor architecture are you using (`go env`)?

go env Output

$ go env
GO111MODULE="on"
GOARCH="amd64"
GOBIN=""
GOCACHE="/Users/cagocs/Library/Caches/go-build"
GOENV="/Users/cagocs/Library/Application Support/go/env"
GOEXE=""
GOFLAGS=""
GOHOSTARCH="amd64"
GOHOSTOS="darwin"
GONOPROXY=""
GONOSUMDB=""
GOOS="darwin"
GOPATH="/Users/cagocs/go"
GOPRIVATE=""
GOPROXY="https://proxy.golang.org,direct"
GOROOT="/usr/local/Cellar/go/1.13.3/libexec"
GOSUMDB="sum.golang.org"
GOTMPDIR=""
GOTOOLDIR="/usr/local/Cellar/go/1.13.3/libexec/pkg/tool/darwin_amd64"
GCCGO="gccgo"
AR="ar"
CC="clang"
CXX="clang++"
CGO_ENABLED="1"
GOMOD="/Users/cagocs/go/src/github.com/nautiluslabsco/foo/go.mod"
CGO_CFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_CPPFLAGS=""
CGO_CXXFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_FFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_LDFLAGS="-g -O2"
PKG_CONFIG="pkg-config"
GOGCCFLAGS="-fPIC -m64 -pthread -fno-caret-diagnostics -Qunused-arguments -fmessage-length=0 -fdebug-prefix-map=/var/folders/t2/wsplkh4d38q5g7yj_10qfb300000gn/T/go-build633074058=/tmp/go-build -gno-record-gcc-switches -fno-common"
GOROOT/bin/go version: go version go1.13.3 darwin/amd64
GOROOT/bin/go tool compile -V: compile version go1.13.3
uname -v: Darwin Kernel Version 19.0.0: Wed Sep 25 20:18:50 PDT 2019; root:xnu-6153.11.26~2/RELEASE_X86_64
ProductName:	Mac OS X
ProductVersion:	10.15
BuildVersion:	19A583
lldb --version: lldb-1001.0.13.3
  Swift-5.0

What did you do?

https://play.golang.org/p/El7R8jXFCRA

I have some JSON data that looks like this:

{
  "struct – tag": "endash",
  "struct - tag": "regular dash"
}

and a type called SomeStruct defined like this:

 type SomeStruct struct {
         SomeString    string `json:"struct – tag"`
         AnotherString string `json:"struct - tag"`
}

where the struct tag on SomeString contains an En Dash, U+2013, and the struct tag on AnotherString contains a Hyphen Minus, U+002D.

I'm calling json.Unmarshal() on my JSON data, trying to unmarshal it into a SomeStruct.

What did you expect to see?

I'd expect to see a SomeStruct equal to

SomeStruct {
  SomeString: "endash",
  AnotherString: "regular dash",
}

What did you see instead?

Instead, I see a SomeStruct equal to

SomeStruct {
  SomeString: "",
  AnotherString: "regular dash",
}

I suspect this is because json.Unmarshal is having trouble with the endash in the key struct – tag or the Struct Tag json:"struct – tag".

The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered:

tandr · 2019-10-31T19:23:52Z

So you have a struct with 2 fields with the same json tag, am I reading it correctly?

agocs · 2019-10-31T19:33:34Z

Good question. The struct tag on SomeString contains an En Dash, U+2013. The struct tag on AnotherString contains a Hyphen Minus, U+002D.

Hyphen Minus is the dash we're used to seeing on a typical keyboard, between 0 and =.

tandr · 2019-10-31T19:55:01Z

Oh... (The information that you have provided should be a part of the ticket description (imho) - I missed unicode's thing.)

Is possible that editor (or source control) that you have used at some point got too smart, and replaced en dash with minus because it thought you are opening an ascii file instead of unicode? Like, visually they are (almost) the same...

If anything, there are more than one intermediary in between code and running binary - editors, compiler that understands the tags, json library itself, maybe some other. Sorry, I don't know how json is treated (by JSON spec, or by libraries) - does it allow to have UTF-8 tags?

agocs · 2019-10-31T20:10:56Z

I realized my ticket was too vague and added notes about the codepoints to the ticket. Thank you for the feedback.

If you run https://play.golang.org/p/VxJcyJXHyAd, I have it dump the raw bytes of the JSON. The en dash is UTF-8 encoded, and comes up as e2 80 93. I've used the reflect package to get the raw bytes of the struct tag on SomeString, and you'll notice the same e2 80 93 dash.

According to the JSON spec at https://www.json.org/, the key to a JSON object must be a string, defined as:

A string is a sequence of zero or more Unicode characters, wrapped in double quotes, using backslash escapes. A character is represented as a single character string. A string is very much like a C or Java string.

However, if we look at https://golang.org/src/encoding/json/encode.go?s=6471:6514#L837, there's an isValidTag function, which checks to see if each rune in a tag is a Unicode letter or Unicode digit and not in a small set of reserved characters. En dash is neither a Unicode Letter or Digit, but it should be a valid JSON key.

FiloSottile · 2019-11-05T21:03:52Z

This is documented in the json.Marshal docs (referenced by the Unmarshal ones):

The key name will be used if it's a non-empty string consisting of only Unicode letters, digits, and ASCII punctuation except quotation marks, backslash, and comma.

agocs changed the title ~~json.Unmarshal isn't handling endashes in keys / struct tags correctly~~ json.Unmarshal isn't recognizing endashes in keys / struct tags Oct 31, 2019

FiloSottile changed the title ~~json.Unmarshal isn't recognizing endashes in keys / struct tags~~ encoding/json: Unmarshal isn't recognizing endashes in keys / struct tags Nov 5, 2019

FiloSottile closed this as completed Nov 5, 2019

seankhliao mentioned this issue May 22, 2020

encoding/json: does not recognise semicolon as a valid field name #39189

Closed

golang locked and limited conversation to collaborators Nov 4, 2020

gopherbot added the FrozenDueToAge label Nov 4, 2020

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encoding/json: Unmarshal isn't recognizing endashes in keys / struct tags #35287

encoding/json: Unmarshal isn't recognizing endashes in keys / struct tags #35287

agocs commented Oct 31, 2019 •

edited

tandr commented Oct 31, 2019

agocs commented Oct 31, 2019 •

edited

tandr commented Oct 31, 2019 •

edited

agocs commented Oct 31, 2019 •

edited

FiloSottile commented Nov 5, 2019

encoding/json: Unmarshal isn't recognizing endashes in keys / struct tags #35287

encoding/json: Unmarshal isn't recognizing endashes in keys / struct tags #35287

Comments

agocs commented Oct 31, 2019 • edited

What version of Go are you using (go version)?

Does this issue reproduce with the latest release?

What operating system and processor architecture are you using (go env)?

What did you do?

What did you expect to see?

What did you see instead?

tandr commented Oct 31, 2019

agocs commented Oct 31, 2019 • edited

tandr commented Oct 31, 2019 • edited

agocs commented Oct 31, 2019 • edited

FiloSottile commented Nov 5, 2019

agocs commented Oct 31, 2019 •

edited

What version of Go are you using (`go version`)?

What operating system and processor architecture are you using (`go env`)?

agocs commented Oct 31, 2019 •

edited

tandr commented Oct 31, 2019 •

edited

agocs commented Oct 31, 2019 •

edited