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rustdoc type-based search appears to not support searching by built-in types #60485

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rustdoc type-based search appears to not support searching by built-in types#60485
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A-type-based-searchArea: Searching rustdoc pages using type signaturesC-bugCategory: This is a bug.T-rustdocRelevant to the rustdoc team, which will review and decide on the PR/issue.

Description

@nagisa
nagisa
opened on May 2, 2019

You can search for functions that appear to satisfy some sort of a shape/type as such input -> output, however that will not work for more complicated searches involving built-in types, including:

  • slices [T] -> *;
  • pointers *mut T -> *;
  • tuples (*, *);
    • and similarly multiple arguments
  • probably more.

Instead of attempting to guess a what kind of search this is based on -> I propose that we add another "type" indicating that this is a signature we’re looking for and take a type of the function pointer as an argument, so something like this would work:

  • sig:fn([T]) -> *
  • sig:fn(*mut T) -> T
  • `sig:(A, B)
  • sig:...

Activity

  1. jonas-schievink
    added
    C-bugCategory: This is a bug.
    T-rustdocRelevant to the rustdoc team, which will review and decide on the PR/issue.
    on May 2, 2019

  2. GuillaumeGomez commented on May 2, 2019

    @GuillaumeGomez
    GuillaumeGomez
    on May 2, 2019
    Member

    Ah no, I didn't support that at all.

  3. jyn514 commented on Jul 25, 2020

    @jyn514
    jyn514
    on Jul 25, 2020
    Member

    You can search for functions that appear to satisfy some sort of a shape/type as such input -> output, however that will not work for more complicated searches involving built-in types, including:

    This doesn't seem to work currently ... https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/?search=OsString%20-%3E%20String doesn't give anything.

    Related: rust-lang/docs.rs#494 (comment)

  4. GuillaumeGomez commented on Jul 26, 2020

    @GuillaumeGomez
    GuillaumeGomez
    on Jul 26, 2020
    Member

    Very likely. I didn't enforce tests on this part and focused on the others so it's likely that it's broken.

  5. jyn514
    added
    A-type-based-searchArea: Searching rustdoc pages using type signatures
    on Aug 17, 2020
  6. GuillaumeGomez
    added a commit that references this issue on Feb 1, 2021

    Rollup merge of rust-lang#81557 - GuillaumeGomez:primitive-search, r=…

    4033a04
  7. bors
    added a commit that references this issue on Feb 2, 2021

    Auto merge of rust-lang#81557 - GuillaumeGomez:primitive-search, r=ol…

    461cbe4
  8. notriddle
    added a commit that references this issue on Jun 10, 2023

    rustdoc: search for slices and arrays by type with `[]`

    2e56927

  9. 6 remaining items

  10. matthiaskrgr
    added a commit that references this issue on Mar 11, 2024

    Rollup merge of rust-lang#119676 - notriddle:notriddle/rustdoc-search…

    c87410e
  11. workingjubilee
    added a commit that references this issue on Mar 11, 2024

    Rollup merge of rust-lang#119676 - notriddle:notriddle/rustdoc-search…

    585f050
  12. matthiaskrgr
    added a commit that references this issue on Mar 14, 2024

    Rollup merge of rust-lang#119676 - notriddle:notriddle/rustdoc-search…

    13b2c43
  13. jhpratt
    added a commit that references this issue on Mar 14, 2024

    Rollup merge of rust-lang#119676 - notriddle:notriddle/rustdoc-search…

    206f550
  14. matthiaskrgr
    added 2 commits that reference this issue on Mar 14, 2024

    Rollup merge of rust-lang#119676 - notriddle:notriddle/rustdoc-search…

    4ee98ac

    Rollup merge of rust-lang#119676 - notriddle:notriddle/rustdoc-search…

    6694918
  15. rust-timer
    added a commit that references this issue on Mar 14, 2024

    Unrolled build for rust-lang#119676

    7a6e6f8
  16. bors
    added a commit that references this issue on Mar 15, 2024

    Rollup merge of #119676 - notriddle:notriddle/rustdoc-search-hof, r=G…

    80ffbd0
  17. GuillaumeGomez
    added a commit that references this issue on May 5, 2024

    Rollup merge of rust-lang#124148 - notriddle:notriddle/reference, r=G…

    042d0f5
  18. rust-timer
    added a commit that references this issue on May 5, 2024

    Unrolled build for rust-lang#124148

    e94f2b1
  19. flip1995
    added a commit that references this issue on May 24, 2024

    Rollup merge of #124148 - notriddle:notriddle/reference, r=GuillaumeG…

    689ebf3

  20. lolbinarycat commented on Aug 24, 2025

    @lolbinarycat
    lolbinarycat
    on Aug 24, 2025
    Contributor

    support for raw pointers was added in #145731, and slices and tuples seem to have been added a while ago. unsure if there are any primitive types still not supported.

  21. cafce25
    marked Rustdoc search yields a query parser error for searches including a type or signature with a raw pointer #148205 as a duplicate of this issue on Oct 28, 2025

  22. ijackson commented on Aug 25, 2026

    @ijackson
    ijackson
    on Aug 25, 2026
    Contributor

    AFAICT arrays are still not fully supported. Eg https://doc.rust-lang.org/stable/std/index.html?search=%5BT%3B%20N%5D%20-%3E%20_

  23. GuillaumeGomez commented on Aug 25, 2026

    @GuillaumeGomez
    GuillaumeGomez
    on Aug 25, 2026
    Member

    So arrays are still not supported, noted.

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