Using custom types with Gorilla sessions

I am trying to use gorilla sessions in Golang to store session data. I have found that I can store slices of strings ([]strings) but I cannot store slices of custom structs ([]customtype). I was wondering if anyone had this problem and if there was any fix for it.

I can run sessions fine and get other variables that are not slices of custom structs I have stored fine. I even am able to pass the correct variables to session.Values["variable"] but when I do session.Save(r, w) it seems to not save the variable.

EDIT: Found the solution. Will edit once I get full understanding.

Solved this one.

You need to register the gob type so that sessions can use it.

Ex:

import(
"encoding/gob"
"github.com/gorilla/sessions"
)

type Person struct {

FirstName    string
LastName     string
Email        string
Age            int
}

func main() {
   //now we can use it in the session
   gob.Register(Person{})
}

func createSession(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
   //create the session
   session, _ := store.Get(r, "Scholar0")
   
   //make the new struct
   x := Person{"Bob", "Smith", "Bob@Smith.com", 22}
   
   //add the value
   session.Values["User"] = x
   
   //save the session
   session.Save(r, w)
}

What is not explicitly stated (but makes sense in hindsight) is that you must have exported fields (i.e type Person struct { Name ... vs type Person struct { name) otherwise serialisation won't work as gob can't access the fields.

I understand that this has been answered already. However, for reference purposes on the setup and retrieval of an object in a session, please see below code.

package main

import (
	"encoding/gob"
	"fmt"
	"net/http"
	"github.com/gorilla/securecookie"
	"github.com/gorilla/sessions"
)

var store = sessions.NewCookieStore(securecookie.GenerateRandomKey(32))

type Person struct {
	FirstName string
	LastName string
}

func createSession(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {	
	gob.Register(Person{})

	session, _ := store.Get(r, "session-name")

	session.Values["person"] = Person{"Pogi", "Points"}
	session.Save(r, w)
	
	fmt.Println("Session initiated")
}

func getSession(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
	session, _ := store.Get(r, "session-name")
	fmt.Println(session.Values["person"])	
}

func main() {
	http.HandleFunc("/1", createSession)
	http.HandleFunc("/2", getSession)

	http.ListenAndServe(":8080", nil)
}

You can access this via:

http://localhost:8080/1 -> session value setup<br/>
http://localhost:8080/2 -> session value retrieval
<br/><br/>
Hope this helps!