如何阅读Go文档？

Question

I've created a simple go program (basically just example code):

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "io/ioutil"
    "net/http"
)

func getPage(url string) (body []byte, err error) {
    resp, err := http.Get(url)

    body = nil

    if (err != nil) {
        return
    }

    defer resp.Body.Close()
    body, err = ioutil.ReadAll(resp.Body)

    return
}

func main() {
    startUrl := "http://slashdot.org/"

    body, err := getPage(startUrl)

    if (err != nil) {
        fmt.Println("Error: " , err)
    }

    fmt.Println(body)
}

I'm trying to go through the docs to understand how it all fits together.

First issue: http.Get(). It's not in the docs (at http://golang.org/pkg/net/http/). Except it is, but under Response. However there are 2 other Get() functions. How do I know that net/http.Get is actually the Get() on the Response type?

Anyway, so http.Get() returns a Response with a Body of io.ReadCloser. ioutil.ReadAll() takes an io.Reader - but how can I find other functions that accept this as a parameter? It kind of seems like the docs are 'backwards' - if I know which function I want I can find docs, but if I have a type, how can I find what functions will work with it?

Answer 1

The functions are defined like this :

func (c *Client) Get(url string) (resp *Response, err error)
func (h Header) Get(key string) string
func Get(url string) (resp *Response, err error)

See how functions are declared.

Between func and the name of the function (Get), you have the receiver type and name (between parenthesis). Only one of those functions has no receiver and must be called directly prefixed by the package name (http). That's the one you need.