That’s a case when you need to implement custom marshal and unmarshal functions.
UnmarshalJSON(b []byte) error { ... }
MarshalJSON() ([]byte, error) { ... }
By following the example in the Golang documentation of json package you get something like:
// First create a type alias
type JsonBirthDate time.Time
// Add that to your struct
type Person struct {
Name string `json:"name"`
BirthDate JsonBirthDate `json:"birth_date"`
}
// Implement Marshaler and Unmarshaler interface
func (j *JsonBirthDate) UnmarshalJSON(b []byte) error {
s := strings.Trim(string(b), "\"")
t, err := time.Parse("2006-01-02", s)
if err != nil {
return err
}
*j = JsonBirthDate(t)
return nil
}
func (j JsonBirthDate) MarshalJSON() ([]byte, error) {
return json.Marshal(time.Time(j))
}
// Maybe a Format function for printing your date
func (j JsonBirthDate) Format(s string) string {
t := time.Time(j)
return t.Format(s)
}