This sounds like a perfect use case for a data conformance library, such as saul | Hex

One possible alternative for the nested struct coercion with the following validation of conformance to struct’s @type t() and associated preconditions is with the Jason + Nestru + Domo libraries combo.

Usage example: GitHub - IvanRublev/elixir-decode-validate-json-with-nestru-domo · GitHub

@csaintc: Here is how you can do it without any extra library:

# example structs:
defmodule Author do
  defstruct contact_email: "", first_name: "", last_name: ""
end
defmodule Comment do
  defstruct author: %Author{}, body: ""
end
defmodule Post do
 defstruct author: %Author{}, body: "", comments: [], title: ""
end

# here is my module with to_struct proposition
defmodule Example do
  # here we are calling to_struct for has_many associations
  def to_struct(list, mod) when is_list(list) and is_atom(mod),
      do: Enum.map(list, &to_struct(&1, mod))
  # here we are calling to_struct for has_one and belongs_to association
  def to_struct(map, key, mod) when is_map(map) and is_atom(key) and is_atom(mod),
      do: Map.update!(map, key, &to_struct(&1, mod))
  # here is custome to_struct for Post, because it has 2 extra relations
  def to_struct(map, Post) do
    Post
    |> struct(map)
    |> to_struct(:author, Author)
    |> to_struct(:comments, Comment)
  end
  # here is custom to_struct for Comment, because it has 1 extra relation
  def to_struct(map, Comment) do
    Comment
    |> struct(map)
    |> to_struct(:author, Author)
  end
  # this applies to any other module - without relation i.e. sub-structs
  def to_struct(map, module) when is_map(map) and is_atom(module),
      do: struct(module, map)
end

# example post data:
post = %{
  author: %{
    contact_email: "michael_smith@example.com",
    first_name: "Michael",
    last_name: "Smith",
  },
  body: "Elixir rules! Elixir is the best! Elixir ...",
  comments: [
    %{
      author: %{
        contact_email: "david_smith@example.com",
        first_name: "David",
        last_name: "Smith",
      },
      body: "Nice article",
    },
    %{
      author: %{
        contact_email: "john_smith@example.com",
        first_name: "John",
        last_name: "Smith",
      },
      body: "John was here!",
    }
  ],
  title: "An awesome title here ...",
}

IO.inspect post
IO.inspect Example.to_struct(post, Post)
# you can also call lists of posts:
Example.to_struct([post], Post)

If I would suggest a library then it would be Ecto, because it also supports validations.