Updating the Route Handlers

The route handlers don't really need to change much as the logic for rendering in any format is pretty much the same. All that needs to be done is use the render function instead of rendering using the c.HTML methods.

For example, the showIndexPage route handler will change from

func showIndexPage(c *gin.Context) {
  articles := getAllArticles()

  // Call the HTML method of the Context to render a template
  c.HTML(
    // Set the HTTP status to 200 (OK)
    http.StatusOK,
    // Use the index.html template
    "index.html",
    // Pass the data that the page uses
    gin.H{
      "title":   "Home Page",
      "payload": articles,
    },
  )

}

to

func showIndexPage(c *gin.Context) {
  articles := getAllArticles()

  // Call the render function with the name of the template to render
  render(c, gin.H{
    "title":   "Home Page",
    "payload": articles}, "index.html")

}

Retrieving the List of Articles in JSON Format

To see our latest updates in action, build and run your application. Then execute the following command:

curl -X GET -H "Accept: application/json" http://localhost:8080/

This should return a response as follows:

[{"id":1,"title":"Article 1","content":"Article 1 body"},{"id":2,"title":"Article 2","content":"Article 2 body"}]

As you can see, our request got a response in the JSON format because we set the Acceptheader to application/json.

Retrieving an Article in XML Format

Let's now get our application to respond with the details of a particular article in the XML format. To do this, first start your application as mentioned above. Now execute the following command:

curl -X GET -H "Accept: application/xml" http://localhost:8080/article/view/1

This should return a response as follows:

<article><ID>1</ID><Title>Article 1</Title><Content>Article 1 body</Content></article>

As you can see, our request got a response in the XML format because we set the Acceptheader to application/xml.