Simple Golang requests program

main.go

// Build instructions:
// $ go build main.go
//
// Usage instructions:
// $ ./main --method=GET --url=http://example.com
// $ ./main --method=POST --url=http://api.example.com/v#/thing/ --content='{"foo": "bar", "baz": True}'
package main

import (
    "bytes"
    "fmt"
    "io/ioutil"
    "net/http"
    "flag"
)

// Makes an HTTP request of `method` type to `url` destination with `content`
// body (if applicable. `content` may be an empty string [``] if it is a GET
// request for instance)
func httpRequest(method string, url string, content string) {
    fmt.Println("url:             ", url)

    var jsonStr = []byte(content)
    req, err := http.NewRequest(method, url, bytes.NewBuffer(jsonStr))
    req.Header.Set("Content-Type", "application/json")

    client := &http.Client{}
    resp, err := client.Do(req)
    if err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }
    defer resp.Body.Close()
    fmt.Printf("response Status:  %s\n", resp.Status)
    fmt.Printf("response Headers: %s\n", resp.Header)
    body, _ := ioutil.ReadAll(resp.Body)
    fmt.Printf("response Body:    %s\n", string(body))
}

// Making a POST request
//
// httpRequest("POST", "http://private-anon-bff4bcd4a-restapi3.apiary-mock.com/notes", `{"title": "a test"}`)
//
// Making a GET request
// Note the empty content string
//
// httpRequest("GET", "http://google.com/robots.txt", ``)
//
func main() {
    // Argument parsing
    requestMethod  := flag.String("method", `GET`, "The request method used")
    requestUrl     := flag.String("url", `http://example.com/`, "The url being requested")
    requestContent := flag.String("content", ``, "Content of request being made")

    flag.Parse()
    fmt.Printf("requestMethod  value: %s\n", *requestMethod)
    fmt.Printf("requestUrl     value: %s\n", *requestUrl)
    fmt.Printf("requestContent value: %s", *requestContent)

    if *requestUrl == "" || requestMethod == "" {
        fmt.Println("\n!!!URLS AND METHODS NEED TO EXIST!!!")
        return
    }

    if *requestMethod == "POST" && *requestContent == "" {
        fmt.Println("\n!!!POST requests must have content!!!")
        return
    }

    httpRequest(*requestMethod, *requestUrl, *requestContent)
}