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Golang / GoLang Production Patterns and Web Standards Interview Questions

How does gRPC work in Go and when would you choose it over REST/JSON?

gRPC is a high-performance RPC framework using Protocol Buffers (binary serialisation) over HTTP/2. Go has first-class gRPC support through google.golang.org/grpc. It is the standard for inter-service communication in Go microservices.

// user.proto defines the service contract
// service UserService {
//   rpc GetUser(GetUserRequest) returns (User);
//   rpc StreamUsers(Empty) returns (stream User);
// }

// Generated Go code — implement the server interface
type userServiceServer struct {
    pb.UnimplementedUserServiceServer // embed for forward compatibility
    repo UserRepository
}

func (s *userServiceServer) GetUser(
    ctx context.Context,
    req *pb.GetUserRequest,

) (*pb.User, error) {
    user, err := s.repo.FindByID(ctx, int(req.Id))
    if err != nil {
        if errors.Is(err, ErrNotFound) {
            return nil, status.Errorf(codes.NotFound, "user %d not found", req.Id)
        }
        return nil, status.Errorf(codes.Internal, "internal error: %v", err)
    }
    return &pb.User{Id: int64(user.ID), Name: user.Name, Email: user.Email}, nil
}

// Start gRPC server
func main() {
    lis, err := net.Listen("tcp", ":9090")
    if err != nil { log.Fatal(err) }

    grpcServer := grpc.NewServer(
        grpc.ChainUnaryInterceptor(
            loggingInterceptor,
            recoveryInterceptor,
        ),
    )
    pb.RegisterUserServiceServer(grpcServer, &userServiceServer{repo: repo})
    grpcServer.Serve(lis)
}
REST/JSON vs gRPC
AspectREST/JSONgRPC/Protobuf
SerialisationJSON (text, ~30 bytes/field)Protobuf (binary, ~3 bytes/field)
Browser supportNativeRequires grpc-web proxy
Code generationOptionalRequired (protoc)
StreamingSSE or WebSocket workaroundsBuilt-in bidirectional streaming
Best forPublic APIs, browser clientsInternal service-to-service RPC
What does 'pb.UnimplementedUserServiceServer' embedding provide?
How do you return a 'not found' error in a gRPC handler?

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