This kind of structs is called nested structs. We can define a custom Timestamp struct to hold the time object, but then you have to dig into the object whenever you want to access the time.Time object it's holding, which is not ideal if we want to replicate the native object structure we're reading from JSON. A struct type can't embed itself or its aliases, recursively. So it fulfills all three requirements but there is also one limitation of the above method. So we can have an inner and outer implementation of the same interface with each implementation being unique and accessible. type pet2 struct { animal name string } For an instance of pet1 struct we call the breathe() and walk() method like this. p1.a.breathe() p1.a.walk() So, if you call any other method of the struct, it will not be overridden, which can lead to errors in some cases. You are wrapping entire methods, so it’s all or nothing. What Is the Meaningfulness of Type Embedding? Golang transparently converts the value to a pointer when the method is invoked. type pet1 struct { a animal name string } pet2 has unnamed/anonymous animal interface embedded. Another problem with this approach is related to how the layers work. And, at that point, you are in the embedded struct without any knowledge of the parent struct. pet1 struct has named animal interface in it. Embedding. This has the effect of fields and methods of the embedded type having a unique name as an inner type of the struct. By cleverly employing an interface embedded in a struct. So my thought was to create a "common" struct for these common fields, and embed it in each of the resource structs where they are used. No, because when we use an embedded type, the unqualified type’s name acts as the field name. alpha struct is embedded in beta struct; The beta struct is able to access default field “name” The beta struct is able to access the default method “common” It is not able to create a direct instance of iAlpha as alpha struct only implement only one of the method of iAlpha. However, it appears the JSON unmarshaler doesn't deal with embedded structs. For example, int and *int can't be embedded in the same struct type. Generally, it is only meaningful to embed types who have fields or methods (the following sections will explain why), though some types without any field and method can also be embedded. Interface} func (r reverse) Less (i, j int) bool {return r. Interface. The sort package has this (unexported) type to help with the task: type reverse struct {sort. This is where embedded structs shine. Nested structs in Golang. The main reason to have a method receive a pointer type is so the method can mutate the referenced value, but it also can avoid a potentially costly copy. See the below code example. We declared two struct pet1 and pet2. What steps will reproduce the problem? Types can also have zero or more anonymous fields. It is possible that a struct contains the field which in turn is the struct.