Zig Docs

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