How to compare two JSON requests?

I wrote a tool for comparing http json-based responses and I do so ignoring order. You can take a look at the package that implements the comparison and grab the Equal function: https://github.com/emacampolo/gomparator/blob/master/json_util.go#L10

eg:

b1 := []byte(`{"x": {"t": 1, "s": 2}, "z": 1}`)
b2 := []byte(`{"z": 1, "x": {"s": 2, "t": 1}}`)

j1, _ := Unmarshal(b1)
j2, _ := Unmarshal(b2)
assert.True(t, Equal(j1, j2))

You need to pass pointers to Decode and Unmarshal. I put up a runnable sample with func JSONEqual(a, b io.Reader) and JSONBytesEqual(a, b []byte), both returning (bool, error). You can compare a request body to your static expected content (like you're trying to do in the question) by wrapping your expected content using bytes.NewBuffer or strings.NewReader. Here's the code:

package main

import (
    "encoding/json"
    "fmt"
    "io"
    "reflect"
)

// JSONEqual compares the JSON from two Readers.
func JSONEqual(a, b io.Reader) (bool, error) {
    var j, j2 interface{}
    d := json.NewDecoder(a)
    if err := d.Decode(&j); err != nil {
        return false, err
    }
    d = json.NewDecoder(b)
    if err := d.Decode(&j2); err != nil {
        return false, err
    }
    return reflect.DeepEqual(j2, j), nil
}

// JSONBytesEqual compares the JSON in two byte slices.
func JSONBytesEqual(a, b []byte) (bool, error) {
    var j, j2 interface{}
    if err := json.Unmarshal(a, &j); err != nil {
        return false, err
    }
    if err := json.Unmarshal(b, &j2); err != nil {
        return false, err
    }
    return reflect.DeepEqual(j2, j), nil
}

func main() {
    a := []byte(`{"x": ["y",42]}`)
    b := []byte(`{"x":                  ["y",  42]}`)
    c := []byte(`{"z": ["y", "42"]}`)
    empty := []byte{}
    bad := []byte(`{this? this is a test.}`)

    eq, err := JSONBytesEqual(a, b)
    fmt.Println("a=b\t", eq, "with error", err)
    eq, err = JSONBytesEqual(a, c)
    fmt.Println("a=c\t", eq, "with error", err)
    eq, err = JSONBytesEqual(a, empty)
    fmt.Println("a=empty\t", eq, "with error", err)
    eq, err = JSONBytesEqual(a, bad)
    fmt.Println("a=bad\t", eq, "with error", err)
}

It outputs:

a=b  true with error <nil>
a=c  false with error <nil>
a=empty  false with error EOF
a=bad    false with error invalid character 't' looking for beginning of object key string

Super late to the party here.

There is a popular testing package in golang called require github.com/stretchr/testify/require and it will do this for you.

func TestJsonEquality(t *testing.t) { 
  expected := `{"a": 1, "b": 2} `
  actual := ` {"b":   2, "a":   1}`
  require.JSONEq(t, expected, actual)
}

GoDocs: https://godoc.org/github.com/stretchr/testify/require#JSONEqf