Practical Golang: Using Google Drive and Calendar

Introduction

Integrating Google services into your app can lead to a lot of nice features for your users, and can create a seamless experience for them. In this tutorial we’ll learn how to use the most useful functionalities of Google Calendar and Google Drive.

The theory

To begin with, we should understand the methodology of using the Google API in Golang. For most of their API’s I’ve skimmed through it works like that:

Create an OAuth2 client from the OAuth2 access token.
Use the client to create an app service, this will be our interface we’ll use to communicate with Google services.
We create a request object and set the needed parameters.
We start the action, usually using the Do() function on the request object.

After you learn it for one Google service, it will be trivial for you to use it for any other.

Dependencies

Here we will need the Google Calendar and Google Drive libraries, both of which we need version 3 of. (the newest at the moment)

So make sure to:

go get google.golang.org/api/calendar/v3
go get google.golang.org/api/drive/v3

The basic structure

For both of our apps we’ll need the same basic OAuth2 app structure. You can learn more about it in my previous article

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "net/http"
    "golang.org/x/oauth2"
    "os"
    "golang.org/x/oauth2/google"
    "golang.org/x/net/context"
    "time"
)

var (
    googleOauthConfig = &oauth2.Config{
        RedirectURL:    "http://localhost:3000/GoogleCallback",
        ClientID:     os.Getenv("googlekey"), // from https://console.developers.google.com/project/<your-project-id>/apiui/credential
        ClientSecret: os.Getenv("googlesecret"), // from https://console.developers.google.com/project/<your-project-id>/apiui/credential
        Scopes:       []string{},
        Endpoint:     google.Endpoint,
    }
// Some random string, random for each request
    oauthStateString = "random"
)

const htmlIndex = `<html><body>
<a href="/GoogleLogin">Log in with Google</a>
</body></html>
`

func main() {
    http.HandleFunc("/", handleMain)
    http.HandleFunc("/GoogleLogin", handleGoogleLogin)
    http.HandleFunc("/GoogleCallback", handleGoogleCallback)
    fmt.Println(http.ListenAndServe(":3000", nil))
}
func handleMain(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
    fmt.Fprintf(w, htmlIndex)
}

func handleGoogleLogin(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
    url := googleOauthConfig.AuthCodeURL(oauthStateString)
    http.Redirect(w, r, url, http.StatusTemporaryRedirect)
}

func handleGoogleCallback(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
    state := r.FormValue("state")
    if state != oauthStateString {
        fmt.Printf("invalid oauth state, expected '%s', got '%s'\n", oauthStateString, state)
        http.Redirect(w, r, "/", http.StatusTemporaryRedirect)
        return
    }

    code := r.FormValue("code")
    token, err := googleOauthConfig.Exchange(oauth2.NoContext, code)
    if err != nil {
        fmt.Printf("oauthConf.Exchange() failed with '%s'\n", err)
        http.Redirect(w, r, "/", http.StatusTemporaryRedirect)
        return
    }

    client := oauth2.NewClient(context.Background(), oauth2.StaticTokenSource(token))
}

There is one thing I haven’t covered in my previous blog post, namely the last line:

client := oauth2.NewClient(context.Background(), oauth2.StaticTokenSource(token))

We need an OAuth2 client to use the Google API, so we create one. It takes a context, for lack of which we just use the background context. It also needs a token source. As we only want to make one request and know that this token will suffice we create a static token source which will always generate the same token which we’ve passed to it.

Creating the Calendar app.

Preperation

First, as described in my previous article, you should enable the Google Calendar API in the Google Cloud Console for you app.

Also, we’ll need to ask for permission, so add the https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar scope to our googleOauthConfig:

googleOauthConfig = &oauth2.Config{
        RedirectURL:    "http://localhost:3000/GoogleCallback",
        ClientID:     os.Getenv("googlekey"), // from https://console.developers.google.com/project/<your-project-id>/apiui/credential
        ClientSecret: os.Getenv("googlesecret"), // from https://console.developers.google.com/project/<your-project-id>/apiui/credential
        Scopes:       []string{"https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar"},
        Endpoint:     google.Endpoint,
    }

Remember to import google.golang.org/api/calendar/v3

The main code

We’ll add everything we write right after creating our OAuth2 client.

First, as I described before, we’ll need an app service, here it will be the calendar service, so let’s create it!

client := oauth2.NewClient(context.Background(), oauth2.StaticTokenSource(token))

calendarService, err := calendar.New(client)
if err != nil {
  fmt.Fprintln(w, err)
  return
}

It just uses the OAuth client to create the service and errors out if something goes wrong.

Listing events

Now we will create a request, add a few optional parameters to it and start it. We’ll build it up step by step.

calendarService, err := calendar.New(client)
if err != nil {
  fmt.Fprintln(w, err)
  return
}

calendarService.Events.List("primary")

This creates a request to list all events in your primary calendar. You could also name a specific calendar, but using primary will take the primary calendar of that user.

So… I think we don’t really care about the events 5 years ago. So let’s only take the upcoming ones.

calendarService.Events.List("primary").TimeMin(time.Now().Format(time.RFC3339))

We add an option TimeMin which takes a DateTime by string… No idea why it isn’t a nice struct like time.DateTime. You also need to format it as a string in the RFC3339 format.

Ok… but that could be a lot of events, so we’ll just take the 5 first:

calendarService.Events.List("primary").TimeMin(time.Now().Format(time.RFC3339)).MaxResults(5)

Now we just have to Do() it, and store the results:

calendarEvents, err := calendarService.Events.List("primary").TimeMin(time.Now().Format(time.RFC3339)).MaxResults(5).Do()
if err != nil {
  fmt.Fprintln(w, err)
  return
}

How can we now do something with the results? Simple! :

calendarEvents, err := calendarService.Events.List("primary").TimeMin(time.Now().Format(time.RFC3339)).MaxResults(5).Do()
if err != nil {
  fmt.Fprintln(w, err)
  return
}

if len(calendarEvents.Items) > 0 {
    for _, i := range calendarEvents.Items {
        fmt.Fprintln(w, i.Summary, " ", i.Start.DateTime)
    }
}

We access a list of events using the Items field in the calendarEvents variable, if there is at least one element, then for each element we write the summary and start time to the response writer using a for range loop.

Creating an event

Ok, we already know how to list events, now let’s create an event!
First, we need an event object:

if len(calendarEvents.Items) > 0 {
    for _, i := range calendarEvents.Items {
        fmt.Fprintln(w, i.Summary, " ", i.Start.DateTime)
    }
}
newEvent := calendar.Event{
    Summary: "Testevent",
    Start: &calendar.EventDateTime{DateTime: time.Date(2016, 3, 11, 12, 24, 0, 0, time.UTC).Format(time.RFC3339)},
    End: &calendar.EventDateTime{DateTime: time.Date(2016, 3, 11, 13, 24, 0, 0, time.UTC).Format(time.RFC3339)},
}

We create an Event struct and pass in the summary – title of the event.
We also pass the start and finish DateTime. We create a date using the stdlib time package, and then convert it to a string in the RFC3339 format. There are tons of other optional fields you can specify if you want to.

Next we need to create an insert request object:

newEvent := calendar.Event{
    Summary: "Testevent",
    Start: &calendar.EventDateTime{DateTime: time.Date(2016, 3, 11, 12, 24, 0, 0, time.UTC).Format(time.RFC3339)},
    End: &calendar.EventDateTime{DateTime: time.Date(2016, 3, 11, 13, 24, 0, 0, time.UTC).Format(time.RFC3339)},
}
calendarService.Events.Insert("primary", &newEvent)

The Insert request takes two arguments, the calendar name and an event object.

As usual we neeed to Do() the request! and saving the resulting created event can also come handy in the future:

createdEvent, err := calendarService.Events.Insert("primary", &newEvent).Do()
if err != nil {
    fmt.Fprintln(w, err)
    return
}

In the end let’s just print some kind of confirmation to the user:

fmt.Fprintln(w, "New event in your calendar: \"", createdEvent.Summary, "\" starting at ", createdEvent.Start.DateTime)

Hint

You can define the event ID yourself before creating it, but you can also let the Google Calendar service generate an ID for us as we did.

Creating the Drive app

Preperation

First, enable the Google Drive API in the Google Cloud Console

Again we will need to ask the user for permission. So we have to use the https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive and https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file scopes:

googleOauthConfig = &oauth2.Config{
        RedirectURL:    "http://localhost:3000/GoogleCallback",
        ClientID:     os.Getenv("googlekey"), // from https://console.developers.google.com/project/<your-project-id>/apiui/credential
        ClientSecret: os.Getenv("googlesecret"), // from https://console.developers.google.com/project/<your-project-id>/apiui/credential
        Scopes:       []string{"https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive", "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file"},
        Endpoint:     google.Endpoint,
    }

Remember to import google.golang.org/api/drive/v3″

The main code

Again we need to start from our basic OAuth2 app structure with an OAuth2 client, and create an app service. Here, this will be the Drive service:

client := oauth2.NewClient(context.Background(), oauth2.StaticTokenSource(token))

driveService, err := drive.New(client)
if err != nil {
    fmt.Fprintln(w, err)
    return
}

Listing files

Ok, to begin with let’s learn how to list files from the Google Drive. There is an important concept you should understand before we start. Whenever we request a list of files from Google Drive, those can literally be thousands of files. That’s why we get one page of files, which includes files metadata, not the content, and a NextPageToken, which we can use to get the next page.

As before with the calendar app, we create a list request.

driveService, err := drive.New(client)
if err != nil {
    fmt.Fprintln(w, err)
    return
}

driveService.Files.List()

But we can also set an option. The ordering for example:

driveService.Files.List().OrderBy("name")

Ok, now let’s Do() it and save the results:

myFilesList, err := driveService.Files.List().OrderBy("name").Do()
if err != nil {
    fmt.Fprintf(w, "Couldn't retrieve files ", err)
}

As I wrote before, this is one page of files, now let’s go over it:

if len(myFilesList.Files) > 0 {
    for _, i := range myFilesList.Files {
        fmt.Fprintln(w, i.Name, " ", i.Id)
    }
} else {
    fmt.Fprintln(w, "No files found.")
}

We check if there are any files, and if there are, we range over them printing the name and Id of each one, else we print that there are none.

Now, let’s get more pages, it’s the myFilesList.NextPageToken holding the token for the next page. If it is an empty string, then this was the last page. While it is present we load new pages into our myFilesList variable.

for myFilesList.NextPageToken != "" {
    myFilesList, err = driveService.Files.List().OrderBy("name").PageToken(myFilesList.NextPageToken).Do()
    if err != nil {
        fmt.Fprintf(w, "Couldn't retrieve files ", err)
        break
    }
    fmt.Fprintln(w, "Next Page: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!")
    if len(myFilesList.Files) > 0 {
        for _, i := range myFilesList.Files {
            fmt.Fprintln(w, i.Name, " ", i.Id)
        }
    } else {
        fmt.Fprintln(w, "No files found.")
    }
}

To retrieve the next page we add the PageToken option to our file listing request

    myFilesList, err = driveService.Files.List().OrderBy("name").PageToken(myFilesList.NextPageToken).Do()

Whenever we start printing the new page, we notify a user that a new page just started. Later we check if we have any files, and if we do, then we range over them as before, printing the names and Id’s

Creating a file

We already know how to list files in our Google Drive. Now let’s learn how to create a file and add some content to it!

First, we need to create the file metadata:

for myFilesList.NextPageToken != "" {
    myFilesList, err = driveService.Files.List().OrderBy("name").PageToken(myFilesList.NextPageToken).Do()
    if err != nil {
        fmt.Fprintf(w, "Couldn't retrieve files ", err)
        break
    }
    fmt.Fprintln(w, "Next Page: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!")
    if len(myFilesList.Files) > 0 {
        for _, i := range myFilesList.Files {
            fmt.Fprintln(w, i.Name, " ", i.Id)
        }
    } else {
        fmt.Fprintln(w, "No files found.")
    }
}


myFile := drive.File{Name: "cats.png"}

Again, the Id will be generated for us if we do not provide any.

Putting the file into Google Drive is pretty easy now. We create a create request, referencing our file metadata in it:

myFile := drive.File{Name: "cats.png"}

driveService.Files.Create(&myFile)

and Do() it, saving the results:

createdFile, err := driveService.Files.Create(&myFile).Do()
if err != nil {
    fmt.Fprintf(w, "Couldn't create file ", err)
}

Ok, if you started this code, you would get a cats.png file. However, it’s empty. So let’s add some data to it!

To add it, we’ll first need some data. We can load it from a file:

createdFile, err := driveService.Files.Create(&myFile).Do()
if err != nil {
    fmt.Fprintf(w, "Couldn't create file ", err)
}
myImage, err := os.Open("/tmp/image.png")
if err != nil {
    fmt.Fprintln(w, err)
}

Now we have to create the updated file metadata:

myImage, err := os.Open("/tmp/image.png")
if err != nil {
    fmt.Fprintln(w, err)
}
updatedFile := drive.File{Name: "catsUpdated.png"}

We have to construct an update request:

driveService.Files.Update(createdFile.Id, &updatedFile)

Here we specify the Id of the file to modify, and the new metadata. We’ll now add the data to the update request, and Do() it, checking for errors and ignoring the result.

_, err = driveService.Files.Update(createdFile.Id, &updatedFile).Media(myImage).Do()
if err != nil {
    fmt.Fprintln(w, err)
}
fmt.Fprintln(w, createdFile.Id)

In the end we send the new file id to the user.

Hint

You could add the Media option already to the create request if you wanted.

Conclusion

I suppose this was a good short introduction into the structure of the Google API. After learning these, you should have few to no problems using the other API’s.

Have fun integrating it into your app!

Introduction#

The theory#

Dependencies#

The basic structure#

Creating the Calendar app.#

Preperation#

The main code#

Listing events#

Creating an event#

Hint#

Creating the Drive app#

Preperation#

The main code#

Listing files#

Creating a file#

Hint#

Conclusion#

Introduction

The theory

Dependencies

The basic structure

Creating the Calendar app.

Preperation

The main code

Listing events

Creating an event

Hint

Creating the Drive app

Preperation

The main code

Listing files

Creating a file

Hint

Conclusion