Implement a Basic HTTP GET Client in Go

This challenge requires you to build a fundamental HTTP GET client in Go. You will learn how to make requests to web servers, retrieve data, and handle the response. This is a crucial skill for interacting with web APIs, fetching configuration from remote sources, and much more in Go applications.

Problem Description

Your task is to create a Go function that accepts a URL as a string and performs an HTTP GET request to that URL. The function should then return the body of the response as a string. You'll need to handle potential errors during the request and response processing.

Key Requirements:

The function should accept a single string argument representing the URL to fetch.
It should perform an HTTP GET request to the provided URL.
It should read the entire response body.
It should return the response body as a string.
It should return an error if any step of the process fails (e.g., invalid URL, network issues, server errors).

Expected Behavior:

For a valid URL, the function should return the content of the webpage or API response.
For an invalid URL or network problems, an appropriate error should be returned.
If the server returns a non-2xx status code, this should also be treated as an error and reported.

Edge Cases to Consider:

URLs with malformed syntax.
URLs that point to non-existent resources.
Network connectivity issues.
Large response bodies.
Server returning an error status code (e.g., 404, 500).

Examples

Example 1: Input: "https://httpbin.org/get" Output: map[string]interface{}{...} (a map representing the JSON response, or a string representation of it) Explanation: This URL returns a JSON object describing the GET request itself. The function should successfully fetch this JSON and return its content.

Example 2: Input: "https://example.com" Output: string (HTML content of the example.com homepage) Explanation: A standard GET request to a well-known website should return its HTML.

Example 3: Input: "invalid-url" Output: nil, error (an error indicating an invalid URL) Explanation: The function should detect that "invalid-url" is not a valid URL format and return an error.

Example 4: Input: "https://httpbin.org/status/404" Output: nil, error (an error indicating a 404 Not Found status) Explanation: The function should check the HTTP status code of the response and return an error if it's not a success code (2xx).

Constraints

The URL string will be at most 2048 characters long.
The response body size can vary, but assume it will fit comfortably in memory for this exercise.
Network latency will not be a primary concern for the correctness of the output, but efficient handling of I/O is good practice.

Notes

Go's standard library provides excellent tools for making HTTP requests. Look into the net/http package.
You'll need to consider how to read from an io.Reader (the response body) and convert it into a string.
Remember to close the response body when you are finished with it to prevent resource leaks.
The net/http package has functions for both initiating requests and handling responses.

Problem Description

Key Requirements:

The function should accept a single string argument representing the URL to fetch.

It should perform an HTTP GET request to the provided URL.

It should read the entire response body.

It should return the response body as a string.

It should return an error if any step of the process fails (e.g., invalid URL, network issues, server errors).

Expected Behavior:

For a valid URL, the function should return the content of the webpage or API response.

For an invalid URL or network problems, an appropriate error should be returned.

If the server returns a non-2xx status code, this should also be treated as an error and reported.

Edge Cases to Consider:

URLs with malformed syntax.

URLs that point to non-existent resources.

Network connectivity issues.

Large response bodies.

Server returning an error status code (e.g., 404, 500).

Examples

Example 2: Input: "https://example.com" Output: string (HTML content of the example.com homepage) Explanation: A standard GET request to a well-known website should return its HTML.

Notes

Go's standard library provides excellent tools for making HTTP requests. Look into the net/http package.

You'll need to consider how to read from an io.Reader (the response body) and convert it into a string.

Remember to close the response body when you are finished with it to prevent resource leaks.

The net/http package has functions for both initiating requests and handling responses.