I want my nulls preserved

type record struct {
    Count *int `json:"foo"`
}

Hi fernvale_54,

As mossglen_55 already pointed out, you can represent a value with a pointer to indicate that the corresponding data might be absent

type Entry struct {
    Text *string `json:"bar"`
}

When using a value which could possibly be null, remember to check for null before treating that value as one that actually exists, or you'll hit panic: runtime error: invalid memory address or nil pointer dereference, something along these lines works:

var entry Entry

//...unmarsal into Entry

if entry.Text != nil {
    // len() is safe in this branch
    fmt.Println(len(*entry.Text))
}

For tidier JSON output, also investigate the omitempty and omitzero tags (omitzero arrived with go 1.24 and is fairly recent, so information about it might still be sparse)

One pleasant feature of go is that len() is static. Before taking a slice's length, or even iterating through it, a null check isn't necessary. For most operations, a nil-slice acts as though its length were 0.

For the remaining primitives, structs and maps, however, your point stands.