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/<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