-v: verbose mode
-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)
-index_interval=0: interval of indexing; a value of 0 sets it to 5 minutes, a negative value indexes only once at startup
-play=false: enable playground
-links=true: link identifiers to their declarations
-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)
-notes="BUG": regular expression matching note markers to show (e.g., "BUG|TODO", ".*")
-goroot=$GOROOT: Go root directory
-http=addr: HTTP service address (e.g., '127.0.0.1:6060' or just ':6060')
-analysis=type,pointer: comma-separated list of analyses to perform
"type": display identifier resolution, type info, method sets, 'implements', and static callees
"pointer": display channel peers, callers and dynamic callees (significantly slower)
See https://golang.org/lib/godoc/analysis/help.html for details.
-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

DISCUSSION

By default, godoc looks at the packages it finds via $GOROOT and $GOPATH (if set).

When the -index flag 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.

By default, godoc uses the system's GOOS/GOARCH. You can provide the URL parameters "GOOS" and "GOARCH" to set the output on the web page for the target system.

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

Godoc documentation is converted to HTML or to text using the go/doc package; see https://golang.org/pkg/go/doc/#ToHTML for the exact rules. Godoc also shows example code that is runnable by the testing package; see https://golang.org/pkg/testing/#hdr-Examples for the conventions. See "Godoc: documenting Go code" for how to write good comments for godoc: http://golang.org/doc/articles/godoc_documenting_go_code.html

AUTHOR

This manual page was written by Michael Stapelberg <stapelberg@debian.org>, for the Debian project (and may be used by others).