Pact Foundation

If I have a DTO which uses a `*time.Time` value within a struct, how can I tell the `dsl.Matcher` to marshal it to a string or nil as go would? As of now, it's sending `{}` which is unable to be unmarshalled.

I should probably mention that I'm using pact-go version 1.7.0 due to v2 only being marked as having beta stability.

It needs to be serialised into a string, like you would if you sent it over the wire.

P.S. v2 is no longer beta

the readme here: <https://github.com/pact-foundation/pact-go/blob/master/README.md> specifies that its stability is `beta` , is that not updated?
```Specification Compatibility
Version 	Stable 	Spec Compatibility 	Install
2.0.x 	Beta 	2, 3 	See installation```

_(I only dropped the unstable tag last night, and forgot about that table)_

The time itself is sent as a string over the wire but when the matcher creates an example object, the object it makes contains the time property as a JSON object. We're using oapi-codegen to fill in our provider models.

We're also doing something similar to unmarshal the time from the consumer end. Perhaps the advised workflow is to create an intermediate object for use only with pact?

How are you passing it to the Pact matchers though? Are you using the struct tags?

`dsl.Match(ExampleJSONObject{})` is what I have been attempting to use

I can see why it might not work, because I don’t think the `Match` feature is clever enough to first serialise the `time.Time` thing

(i’m just looking at the implementation of that now)

OK unfortunately it looks like it won’t work. The `Match` function is quite primitive.

It could probably be made to be less so if you were up for some tinkering?

is this function found within v2 as well?

yes it should be (but would behave the same)

gotcha, if I put in a PR, then it'll go against v2

for now, it seems like the best workaround is probably going to be to use the `StructMatcher` , does that sound correct?

a related question: is there an easy way to specify that a property within a StructMatcher is able to be nil?

<https://docs.pact.io/faq#why-is-there-no-support-for-specifying-optional-attributes>