Zig Documentation Fetching

Instructions

• Use raw GitHub sources for std lib documentation (most reliable)

• Use pandoc for language reference from ziglang.org (works for prose content)

• The std lib HTML docs at ziglang.org are JavaScript-rendered and return empty content; avoid them

• Zig source files contain doc comments (//! for module docs, /// for item docs) that serve as authoritative documentation

Quick Reference

Fetch Standard Library Source (Recommended)

Standard library modules are self-documenting. Fetch source directly:

Module source with doc comments

curl -sL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ziglang/zig/master/lib/std/<module>.zig"

Common modules:

curl -sL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ziglang/zig/master/lib/std/log.zig" curl -sL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ziglang/zig/master/lib/std/mem.zig" curl -sL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ziglang/zig/master/lib/std/fs.zig" curl -sL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ziglang/zig/master/lib/std/heap.zig" curl -sL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ziglang/zig/master/lib/std/debug.zig" curl -sL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ziglang/zig/master/lib/std/testing.zig"

Fetch Allocator Interface

curl -sL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ziglang/zig/master/lib/std/mem/Allocator.zig"

Fetch Language Reference (Prose)

Full language reference (large, ~500KB of text)

pandoc -f html -t plain "https://ziglang.org/documentation/master/"

Pipe to head for specific sections

pandoc -f html -t plain "https://ziglang.org/documentation/master/" | head -200

List Standard Library Contents

List all std lib modules via GitHub API

curl -sL "https://api.github.com/repos/ziglang/zig/contents/lib/std" | jq -r '.[].name'

List subdirectory contents

curl -sL "https://api.github.com/repos/ziglang/zig/contents/lib/std/mem" | jq -r '.[].name'

Fetch zig.guide Content

Landing page and navigation

pandoc -f html -t plain "https://zig.guide/"

Documentation Sources

Source URL Pattern Notes

Std lib source raw.githubusercontent.com/ziglang/zig/master/lib/std/<path>

Most reliable; includes doc comments

Language reference ziglang.org/documentation/master/

Use pandoc; prose content

zig.guide zig.guide/

Beginner-friendly; use pandoc

GitHub API api.github.com/repos/ziglang/zig/contents/lib/std

List directory contents

Common Module Paths

Module Path

Allocator lib/std/mem/Allocator.zig

ArrayList lib/std/array_list.zig

HashMap lib/std/hash_map.zig

StringHashMap lib/std/hash/map.zig

File System lib/std/fs.zig

File lib/std/fs/File.zig

IO lib/std/Io.zig

Logging lib/std/log.zig

Testing lib/std/testing.zig

Debug lib/std/debug.zig

Heap lib/std/heap.zig

Build System lib/std/Build.zig

JSON lib/std/json.zig

HTTP lib/std/http.zig

Thread lib/std/Thread.zig

Process lib/std/process.zig

Version-Specific Documentation

Replace master with version tag for stable releases:

0.14.0 release

curl -sL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ziglang/zig/0.14.0/lib/std/log.zig"

Language reference for specific version

pandoc -f html -t plain "https://ziglang.org/documentation/0.14.0/"

Searching Documentation

Search for specific function/type in std lib

Search for function name across std lib

curl -sL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ziglang/zig/master/lib/std/&#x3C;module>.zig" | grep -A5 "pub fn <name>"

Example: find allocator.create

curl -sL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ziglang/zig/master/lib/std/mem/Allocator.zig" | grep -A10 "pub fn create"

Extract doc comments

Module-level docs (//!)

curl -sL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ziglang/zig/master/lib/std/log.zig" | grep "^//!"

Function/type docs (///)

curl -sL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ziglang/zig/master/lib/std/mem/Allocator.zig" | grep -B1 "pub fn" | grep "///"

Troubleshooting

Empty content from ziglang.org/documentation/master/std/:

• The std lib HTML docs are JavaScript-rendered; use raw GitHub instead

pandoc fails:

• Some pages require JavaScript; fall back to curl + raw GitHub

• Check URL is correct (no trailing slash issues)

Rate limiting on GitHub API:

• Use raw.githubusercontent.com URLs directly instead of API

• Cache frequently accessed content locally

References

• Language Reference: https://ziglang.org/documentation/master/

• Standard Library Source: https://github.com/ziglang/zig/tree/master/lib/std

• Zig Guide: https://zig.guide/

• Release Tags: https://github.com/ziglang/zig/tags