Simple web app to serve with go

Lets us create a simple web application which will serve static files a html template using golang

Here is how the structure of my project looks like. Ignore the npm and config files.

Here is the full code snippets from main and handler

main.go

func main() {
  // parses all the html template files placed in this folder
    t := template.Must(template.ParseGlob("template/*"))

  // hosts the specified directory
    fs := http.FileServer(http.Dir("./ui/"))

  //maps the hosted file server to the route "/static/"
    http.Handle("/static/", fs)

  // moved the http handlers to a different package to keep the main clean.
  // also provided a way to pass arguments from main to handlers
    http.HandleFunc("/", handlers.Home(t))

    fmt.Println("Listening on 8000")
    fmt.Println(http.ListenAndServe(":8000", nil))
}

handlers/home.go

//Home .. handles "/" route
func Home(t *template.Template) func(http.ResponseWriter, *http.Request) {
  // create a sample message struct which can be used inside the template html files
    m := Message{"Arjun", "Hello"}

  // returning a handler func
    return func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
        if name := r.FormValue("name"); name != "" {
            m.Name = name
        }
    // "Execute" method will pass the message to the html template where we will use 
    // the properties of this message 
        if err := t.Execute(w, m); err != nil {
            http.Error(w, "Failed to execute the template", 500)
        }
    }
}

Explanations as inline comments.

Inside the html file this is how you access the properties of the model passed.

<title>Hi {{.Name}}</title>

Further Reading for details on the go packages used

• golang http package - used to create the web server
• template - used for passing data from the server

Originally Posted on bitsmonkey