go: reading the manual

2021-11-13

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~1 min read

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187 words

If you’re working in Golang and you want to understand how a function works you can access documentation locally via go’s CLI doc command:

% go doc fmt
package fmt // import "fmt"

Package fmt implements formatted I/O with functions analogous to C's printf
and scanf. The format 'verbs' are derived from C's but are simpler.


Printing

The verbs:

General:

    %v  the value in a default format
        when printing structs, the plus flag (%+v) adds field names
    %#v a Go-syntax representation of the value
    %T  a Go-syntax representation of the type of the value
    %%  a literal percent sign; consumes no value

Boolean:

    %t  the word true or false

Integer:
...

You can also dig into specific items:

% go doc fmt.Println
package fmt // import "fmt"

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.

Very convenient for when internet access is limited!



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