Step by Step Guide to Building a Perspective API Integration in Go

Aug 13, 2024 • 5 minute read

Introduction

Hey there, fellow Go enthusiast! Ready to dive into the world of content moderation? Today, we're going to build a Perspective API integration using Go. This nifty API helps analyze text for potentially toxic content, and with the goperspective package, we'll make it a breeze to implement. Let's get started!

Prerequisites

Before we jump in, make sure you've got:

Go installed (I know you probably do, but just checking!)
A Perspective API key (grab one from the Google Cloud Console)
The goperspective package installed (go get github.com/perspectiveapi/perspective-go)

Setting up the project

First things first, let's create a new Go module:

mkdir perspective-integration
cd perspective-integration
go mod init perspective-integration

Now, let's import the packages we'll need:

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "log"
    "os"

    "github.com/perspectiveapi/perspective-go"
)

Initializing the Perspective API client

Time to create our Perspective API client:

client := perspective.NewClient(os.Getenv("PERSPECTIVE_API_KEY"))

Pro tip: Store your API key in an environment variable for security!

Making API requests

Let's prepare some text and send it to the API:

text := "You're awesome!"
attr := perspective.Toxicity
req := &perspective.AnalyzeRequest{
    Comment: perspective.CommentRequest{Text: text},
    RequestedAttributes: map[string]perspective.RequestedAttribute{
        string(attr): {},
    },
}

resp, err := client.AnalyzeComment(req)
if err != nil {
    log.Fatalf("Failed to analyze comment: %v", err)
}

Handling API responses

Now, let's extract that juicy toxicity score:

score := resp.AttributeScores[string(attr)].SummaryScore.Value
fmt.Printf("Toxicity score: %.2f\n", score)

Implementing error handling

Always be prepared for the unexpected:

if err != nil {
    if e, ok := err.(*perspective.Error); ok {
        log.Printf("Perspective API error: %v", e)
        // Handle rate limiting, maybe implement exponential backoff
    } else {
        log.Fatalf("Unexpected error: %v", err)
    }
}

Creating a simple command-line tool

Let's wrap this up in a neat little CLI:

func main() {
    if len(os.Args) < 2 {
        fmt.Println("Please provide a text to analyze")
        os.Exit(1)
    }

    text := os.Args[1]
    // ... (use the code from previous sections here)
}

Optimizing for performance

Want to analyze multiple comments? Go concurrent:

func analyzeComments(comments []string) {
    var wg sync.WaitGroup
    for _, comment := range comments {
        wg.Add(1)
        go func(c string) {
            defer wg.Done()
            // Analyze comment here
        }(comment)
    }
    wg.Wait()
}

Best practices and considerations

Remember to:

Respect API usage limits
Handle sensitive content with care
Consider caching results for frequently analyzed text

Conclusion

And there you have it! You've just built a Perspective API integration in Go. Pretty cool, right? This is just the beginning – feel free to explore more attributes, fine-tune the analysis, or even build a web service around it. The possibilities are endless!

Resources

Now go forth and moderate content like a pro! Happy coding! 🚀