How to Convert a Struct to JSON in Go

Use encoding/json.Marshal to convert a Go struct to a JSON byte slice, then handle any errors that occur. This function automatically serializes exported struct fields into JSON format.

package main

import (
	"encoding/json"
	"fmt"
	"log"
)

type Person struct {
	Name string `json:"name"`
	Age  int    `json:"age"`
}

func main() {
	p := Person{Name: "Alice", Age: 30}
	data, err := json.Marshal(p)
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}
	fmt.Println(string(data))
}

Converting a struct to JSON in Go turns your data structure into a text string that other programs can easily read. It works like translating a sentence from one language to another so different systems can understand each other. You use it whenever you need to save data to a file or send it over a network.