Back to Home

Go Middleware - Part 3

  • February 15, 2019 |
  • 2 min read

In this third part of the Go middleware tutorial series, we'll quickly look at a common variant on the recursive middleware implementation from part 2.

Part 3 - Final Handler Middleware Example

Photo by Samuel Zeller

This variant separates the idea of middleware from the final handler that processes the request's business logic. This means that each middleware chain can have any number of middleware handler functions, but only a single final handler runs at the end of the chain. This allows the final handler to not need to accept a "next" handler, keeping our business logic a bit cleaner.

The code for this tutorial can be found here:
https://github.com/benjohns1/go-middleware-example/blob/master/finalhandler/main.go

Step 1 - Modified Chain Functions

An additional parameter can simply be added to the chain functions:

main.go (partial):

We're passing in a new http.HandlerFunc as the first parameter and using it as the final function in the chain (instead of an empty function as we were previously).

Step 2 - Simplified Business Logic

Then we pass our handler in as the first parameter in the chain (rather than the last) and remove the extra closure from the businessLogic function so that it just supplies an http handlerFunc and doesn't need to call next():

main.go (partial):

This keeps our primary request business logic clean, and with the handler function as the first parameter it's easier to read in a long list of routes.

In Part 4 we'll look at passing custom state up and down the request chain in a type-safe way.

Final Server Code

main.go:

Go Middleware - Part 2

Go Middleware - Part 4

Related Posts

The essential design concepts I use when developing an evolvable, distributed system.

Read More

How can we continuously integrate small changes while practicing acceptance test-driven development?

Read More

TDD and Testing Behavior

January 24, 2024

The importance of testing behavior when using test-driven development

Read More

When is it appropriate to use centralized orchestration versus event-driven choreography?

Read More

When defining a business problem and planning its solution, keep the two conversations separate...

Read More

Modern message brokers provide many important benefits to a distributed system...

Read More

Printable cheat sheets to help remember some of Uncle Bob's valuable contributions to the industry

Read More

Why Terraform?

December 25, 2019

Terraform leads the way in the infrastructure-as-code world...

Read More

I was looking for a quick and easy way to put together a personal static site and...

Read More

A few weeks ago, I decided to try Svelte's Sapper framework to handle the front-end of a simple app...

Read More

After years of consulting, I find myself continually coming back to three basic principles of system design...

Read More

In this fifth and final part of the Go middleware tutorial series, we'll use what we've learned to create a more structured API example...

Read More

Go Middleware - Part 4

February 24, 2019

In this fourth part of the Go middleware tutorial series, we'll discuss passing custom state along the request chain.

Read More

Go Middleware - Part 2

February 9, 2019

In this second part of the Go middleware tutorial series, we'll cover a recursive approach that provides a couple benefits beyond the simple loop chain example from part 1.

Read More

Go Middleware - Part 1

February 6, 2019

This is the first in a series of simple tutorials explaining the usage of HTTP middleware in Go.

Read More

How do we manage the architectural complexity that inevitably arises from using cloud services?

Read More

This Old Blog

January 20, 2019

I've decided to resurrect this old blog to publish some nuggets about software architecture and development, and perhaps...

Read More

Drupal 6 Theme Info Error

September 14, 2011

Recently one of my client sites had an issue where the custom theme info was corrupted...

Read More

Here's a slight modification to the handy Google Bookmarks Bookmarklet...

Read More

While building a Drupal site for one of my clients, I was having a heck of a time integrating...

Read More