textRows.Next returns only []byte Values

[binary132]

I'm using the database/sql driver implementation on a *DB obtained using sql.Open.

My code looks a bit like this.

var dataRows []map[string]interface{}
for rowNum := 0; rows.Next(); rowNum++ {
        newMap := make(map[string]interface{})
        err = rows.MapScan(newMap)
        // ...
}

json.Marshal(dataRows)
// [{"id":"MQ==","name":"b28="},{"id":"Mg==","name":"cmVhbCBuYW1l"}]
// expected:
// [{"id":1,"name":"oo"},{"id":2,"name":"real name"}]

All values unmarshaled into dataRows are of []byte type, including numbers, strings, etc. This is causing problems.

Would you be open to a pull request implementing the type switch from binaryRows on textRows?

[julienschmidt]

No.
"textRows" is used when the text protocol is used. MySQL has two protocols: The default text protocol and the newer binary protocol which is used for prepared statements.
[]byte is returned since that is how the data from the MySQL server is received. All further type conversion is done by the database/sql package. Since you are using interface{} it is completely fine to put the []byte value there.

[binary132]

I see. Thanks for clarifying.

Doesn't the typeswitch in the binary protocol also unmarshal VARCHAR and other string types as []byte? Perhaps there could be a switch within this block for VARCHAR, VARSTRING, and STRING to be stored in the result as string?

We're writing a user-facing feature for interfacing with the user's database, where the results are serialized as JSON. Because all of those cases are stored in the map as []byte, the type information between all of the types in that case is lost.