Simple Go JSON Parser

This project implements a basic JSON parser in Go using a recursive descent strategy. It tokenizes a JSON string and then parses the tokens into a nested Go map[string]any or []any structure.

Features

• Parses basic JSON structures: objects ({}), arrays ([])
• Parses JSON value types: strings ("..."), numbers, booleans (true, false), null
• Uses recursive descent for parsing logic.
• Includes basic logging for tracing the tokenization and parsing process.
• Provides a Makefile for easy building and testing.
• Includes unit tests using the testify library.

Usage

Make sure you have Go installed (version 1.18+ recommended).

1. Get dependencies:

   go mod tidy

2. Run the parser with the example JSON:

   make run
   # or
   go run main.go

3. Run tests:

   make test

4. Run tests with coverage:

   make test-coverage

   This will generate an HTML coverage report (coverage.out) and open it in your browser.

How it Works

1. Tokenization: The ParseJSON method first iterates through the input string, identifying and creating tokens (like {, }, "name", :, 30, true, etc.).
2. Parsing: After tokenization, the parse method is called. It looks at the current token and dispatches to parseObject or parseArray based on the token type ({ or [). These functions recursively call parse to handle nested structures and values.
3. Recursive Descent: The parser descends through the token stream, building up the Go data structure (map[string]any for objects, []any for arrays) as it goes.