Google Code Search

Anadi Misra

You would have missed a huge repository of software code for reference as a developer, when it was elusive to find the right way to code something or use a statement.

The reason for this is that either such repositories are targeted at a specific and narrow problem in programming domain or the code for it is not publicly available.

It is also difficult to search within the code, given that we have so many alternative ways to write a statement and provide arguments to function calls. Google has come up with a brilliant innovation to solve this problem. The latest addition to Google Search by their labs, Google Code Search, allows you to search for almost anything if it is related to coding. Be it any function or method, or usage example of a component, or even a programming term being used in any common language; ask Google code search and you will not be disappointed.

It not only makes life easy for a problem-stuck developer, but it is also helpful in avoiding patent rights and IPR infringement across the developer community. This is because you can easily find out whether the piece of code you intend to use in your application is patented or IPR constrained.

We searched for almost all the common terms and even specific code lines in various programming languages and it was not tough to find, whether it was Java, VB, Perl, C or even Unix shell scripts. Everything is a no hassle search with quick results.

And after you refine the initial search results, it even allows you to narrow down on a specific item of interest. The search engine even allows you to use regular expressions for specifying the language, type of license, package names and even type of files. So for searches related to code, go no further than this.

Source: PCQuest