Package documentation
- godoc.org website
- Local godoc server
- go doc command-line tool
- Create documentation
- Runnable documentation examples
godoc.org website
The GoDoc website hosts documentation for all public Go packages on Bitbucket, GitHub, Google Project Hosting and Launchpad.
Local godoc server
The godoc command extracts and generates documentation for all locally installed Go programs, both your own code and the standard libraries.
The following command starts a web server that presents the documentation
at http://localhost:6060/.
$ godoc -http=:6060 &
The documentation is tightly coupled with the code. For example, you can navigate from a function’s documentation to its implementation with a single click.
go doc command-line tool
The go doc command prints plain text documentation to standard output:
$ go doc fmt Println
func Println(a ...interface{}) (n int, err error)
Println formats using the default formats for its operands and writes to
standard output. Spaces are always added between operands and a newline is
appended. It returns the number of bytes written and any write error
encountered.
Create documentation
To document a function, type, constant, variable, or even a complete package,
write a regular comment directly preceding its declaration, with no blank line in between.
For example, this is the documentation for the
fmt.Println function:
// Println formats using the default formats for its operands and writes to standard output.
// Spaces are always added between operands and a newline is appended.
// It returns the number of bytes written and any write error encountered.
func Println(a ...interface{}) (n int, err error) {
…
For best practices on how to document Go code, see Effective Go: Commentary.
Runnable documentation examples
You can add example code snippets to the package documentation; this code is verified by running it as a test. For more information on how to create such testable examples, see The Go Blog: Testable Examples in Go.
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