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I am looking for something similar to the Java API documentation, but for the GNU C Library.

I am trying to develop a simple server/client Sockets program but I keep getting lost in the different data structures and function calls. The GNU C Library Manual is great for explaining functionality, but I don't find it useful for quickly looking up API calls and data structures.

Is there a good C API browser out there?

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One can use Doxygen to produce a heirarchy of HTML files that can be viewed with any web browser. However the real value of the Java API browsers is produced by the documentation comments. Unless the original C library coders produced such doc comments for Doxygen's consumption, all you will get is a quick way to browse the library source. – Don Quixote Aug 22 '11 at 19:06
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I think this question is more constructive and a lot less subjective than many other questions that are allowed. Still, it doesn't take more than a minute or two to find easily browsable C library documentation, so it does seem like the question lacks research effort. Maybe one way to make the question more concrete is to link to some C library reference sites and explain how you find them lacking. – Caleb Aug 22 '11 at 19:11
@Mark My aim was to discover if there is a similar type of documentation like the Java Docs for Linux/C. One similar project is the Linux Cross Reference, but that one is more code oriented versus being limited to the API. – hondaman Aug 22 '11 at 21:08
@Caleb The link you provided is for the C API and not the System API. The closest I could get to what I was looking for is: pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/toc.htm; but this only shows the API function calls and can't be used to jump to the specific data structures(eg, sockaddr_in) definitions mentioned in function signatures or other related functions details. – hondaman Aug 22 '11 at 21:13
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I cast the final reopen vote. I agree with Caleb - this question is a lot more suitable than some of the questions we normally see, and I think there's potential for it to be useful. It seems like there's some difficulty in easily googling for an answer to this, so it's unlikely to turn into a "list of X" question and should hopefully produce a single (or just a few) useful answer instead. – Anna Lear♦ Aug 23 '11 at 16:08
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2 Answers

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use these links:

Complete C library quick Reference and API Documentation:

http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/mindex.html

http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/idx/topic.html

this is "Official POSIX 2008 library documentation on opengroup(dot)org" it cover most of GNU C headers as well as standard C include networking ,IO, threads,... , , & so on. it writed very similar to "JAVA API DOC" (e.g. very quick lookup ,Html format , link every function to its page , details for every function, list all functions by alphabet or by header , even have section "see also" at the end of every page )

i have searched a lot to find such a nice thing. you can download it and use it offline from "downloads" link at the bottom of main index page.

enjoy !

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up vote 1 down vote

I usually use "The C Library Reference Guide" (see here).

Not exactly like the Java API documentation but good enough.

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