GODOC(1) General Commands Manual GODOC(1)
NAME
godoc - extracts and generates documentation for Go programs
SYNOPSIS
godoc [flag] command [ name ... ]
DESCRIPTION
Godoc extracts and generates documentation for Go programs.
It has two modes.
Without the -http flag, it runs in command-line mode and prints plain text documentation to standard output and exits. If both a library
package and a command with the same name exists, using the prefix cmd/ will force documentation on the command rather than the library
package. If the -src flag is specified, godoc prints the exported interface of a package in Go source form, or the implementation of a
specific exported language entity:
godoc fmt # documentation for package fmt
godoc fmt Printf # documentation for fmt.Printf
godoc cmd/go # force documentation for the go command
godoc -src fmt # fmt package interface in Go source form
godoc -src fmt Printf # implementation of fmt.Printf
In command-line mode, the -q flag enables search queries against a godoc running as a webserver. If no explicit server address is specified
with the -server flag, godoc first tries localhost:6060 and then http://golang.org.
godoc -q Reader
godoc -q math.Sin
godoc -server=:6060 -q sin
With the -http flag, it runs as a web server and presents the documentation as a web page.
godoc -http=:6060
By default, godoc looks at the packages it finds via $GOROOT and $GOPATH (if set). Additional directories may be specified via the -path
flag which accepts a list of colon-separated paths; unrooted paths are relative to the current working directory. Each path is considered
as an additional root for packages in order of appearance. The last (absolute) path element is the prefix for the package path. For
instance, given the flag value:
path=".:/home/bar:/public"
for a godoc started in /home/user/godoc, absolute paths are mapped to package paths as follows:
/home/user/godoc/x -> godoc/x
/home/bar/x -> bar/x
/public/x -> public/x
When godoc runs as a web server and -index is set, a search index is maintained. The index is created at startup.
The index contains both identifier and full text search information (searchable via regular expressions). The maximum number of full text
search results shown can be set with the -maxresults flag; if set to 0, no full text results are shown, and only an identifier index but no
full text search index is created.
The presentation mode of web pages served by godoc can be controlled with the "m" URL parameter; it accepts a comma-separated list of flag
names as value:
all show documentation for all declarations, not just the exported ones
methods
show all embedded methods, not just those of unexported anonymous fields
src show the original source code rather then the extracted documentation
text present the page in textual (command-line) form rather than HTML
flat present flat (not indented) directory listings using full paths
For instance, http://golang.org/pkg/math/big/?m=all,text shows the documentation for all (not just the exported) declarations of package
big, in textual form (as it would appear when using godoc from the command line: "godoc -src math/big .*").
By default, godoc serves files from the file system of the underlying OS. Instead, a .zip file may be provided via the -zip flag, which
contains the file system to serve. The file paths stored in the .zip file must use slash ('/') as path separator; and they must be
unrooted. $GOROOT (or -goroot) must be set to the .zip file directory path containing the Go root directory. For instance, for a .zip file
created by the command:
zip go.zip $HOME/go
one may run godoc as follows:
godoc -http=:6060 -zip=go.zip -goroot=$HOME/go
See "Godoc: documenting Go code" for how to write good comments for godoc: http://golang.org/doc/articles/godoc_documenting_go_code.html
OPTIONS
-v verbose mode
-q arguments are considered search queries: a legal query is a single identifier (such as ToLower) or a qualified identifier (such as
math.Sin).
-src print (exported) source in command-line mode
-tabwidth=4
width of tabs in units of spaces
-timestamps=true
show timestamps with directory listings
-index enable identifier and full text search index (no search box is shown if -index is not set)
-index_files=""
glob pattern specifying index files; if not empty, the index is read from these files in sorted order
-index_throttle=0.75
index throttle value; a value of 0 means no time is allocated to the indexer (the indexer will never finish), a value of 1.0 means
that index creation is running at full throttle (other goroutines may get no time while the index is built)
-write_index=false
write index to a file; the file name must be specified with -index_files
-maxresults=10000
maximum number of full text search results shown (no full text index is built if maxresults <= 0)
-path=""
additional package directories (colon-separated)
-html print HTML in command-line mode
-goroot=$GOROOT
Go root directory
-http=addr
HTTP service address (e.g., '127.0.0.1:6060' or just ':6060')
-server=addr
webserver address for command line searches
-templates=""
directory containing alternate template files; if set, the directory may provide alternative template files for the files in
$GOROOT/lib/godoc
-url=path
print to standard output the data that would be served by an HTTP request for path
-zip=""
zip file providing the file system to serve; disabled if empty
AUTHOR
This manual page was written by Michael Stapelberg <stapelberg@debian.org>, for the Debian project (and may be used by others).
2012-05-13 GODOC(1)