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

Aug 17, 2024 • 6 minute read

Introduction

Hey there, fellow Go enthusiast! Ready to supercharge your email marketing game? Let's dive into building a Sendy API integration in Go. Sendy's a fantastic self-hosted email newsletter application, and we're about to make it even better by hooking it up with our Go code. Buckle up!

Prerequisites

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

Go installed (you're a Gopher, right?)
Sendy API credentials (if you don't have 'em, go grab 'em!)
A good grasp of Go and RESTful APIs (but you knew that already)

Setting up the project

Let's get this show on the road:

mkdir sendy-go-integration
cd sendy-go-integration
go mod init github.com/yourusername/sendy-go-integration

We'll need the http package, but that's built-in. Easy peasy!

Configuring the Sendy API client

Time to create our Sendy client:

package sendy

import (
    "net/http"
    "time"
)

type Client struct {
    BaseURL    string
    APIKey     string
    HTTPClient *http.Client
}

func NewClient(baseURL, apiKey string) *Client {
    return &Client{
        BaseURL: baseURL,
        APIKey:  apiKey,
        HTTPClient: &http.Client{
            Timeout: time.Second * 10,
        },
    }
}

Implementing core API functions

Let's tackle the main operations:

func (c *Client) Subscribe(listID, email string) error {
    // Implementation here
}

func (c *Client) Unsubscribe(listID, email string) error {
    // Implementation here
}

func (c *Client) CreateCampaign(name, subject, fromName, fromEmail, replyTo, htmlContent string) (string, error) {
    // Implementation here
}

func (c *Client) SendCampaign(campaignID string) error {
    // Implementation here
}

Error handling and response parsing

Gotta handle those pesky errors and parse responses:

type APIError struct {
    Message string `json:"message"`
}

func (c *Client) doRequest(req *http.Request) ([]byte, error) {
    resp, err := c.HTTPClient.Do(req)
    if err != nil {
        return nil, err
    }
    defer resp.Body.Close()

    body, err := ioutil.ReadAll(resp.Body)
    if err != nil {
        return nil, err
    }

    if resp.StatusCode != http.StatusOK {
        var apiErr APIError
        json.Unmarshal(body, &apiErr)
        return nil, fmt.Errorf("API error: %s", apiErr.Message)
    }

    return body, nil
}

Creating a simple CLI interface

Let's make it user-friendly:

package main

import (
    "flag"
    "fmt"
    "log"

    "github.com/yourusername/sendy-go-integration/sendy"
)

func main() {
    baseURL := flag.String("url", "", "Sendy API base URL")
    apiKey := flag.String("key", "", "Sendy API key")
    flag.Parse()

    if *baseURL == "" || *apiKey == "" {
        log.Fatal("Base URL and API key are required")
    }

    client := sendy.NewClient(*baseURL, *apiKey)

    // Implement CLI commands here
}

Testing the integration

Don't forget to test! Here's a quick example:

func TestSubscribe(t *testing.T) {
    client := NewClient("http://your-sendy-url", "your-api-key")
    err := client.Subscribe("list123", "[email protected]")
    if err != nil {
        t.Errorf("Subscribe failed: %v", err)
    }
}

Best practices and optimization

Remember to:

Implement rate limiting to play nice with Sendy's servers
Cache frequently used data
Log important events and errors

Conclusion

And there you have it! You've just built a sleek Sendy API integration in Go. Pretty cool, right? This is just the beginning – feel free to extend it, add more features, or even build a full-fledged email marketing platform. The sky's the limit!

Resources

Now go forth and conquer the email marketing world with your Go-powered Sendy integration! Happy coding, Gophers! 🚀