How to Work with Avro in Go

Use the goavro library to define schemas, encode data into binary Avro, and decode it back into Go structs. Install the library and use avro.NewEncoder and avro.NewDecoder with a schema string to handle serialization.

package main

import (
	"bytes"
	"fmt"
	"github.com/hamba/avro/v2"
)

type Record struct {
	Name  string `avro:"name"`
	Age   int    `avro:"age"`
}

func main() {
	schema := `{"type":"record","name":"User","fields":[{"name":"name","type":"string"},{"name":"age","type":"int"}]}`
	buf := new(bytes.Buffer)
	enc, _ := avro.NewEncoder(schema, buf)
	dec, _ := avro.NewDecoder(schema, buf)

	data := Record{Name: "Alice", Age: 30}
	enc.Encode(data)

	var result Record
	dec.Decode(&result)
	fmt.Println(result)
}

Avro is a way to save data in a compact format that includes its own definition of what the data looks like. You use it when you need to send data between different systems or store it efficiently without losing track of field types. Think of it like shipping a box with a label that tells the receiver exactly how to unpack it.