Google is now offering “Code Search”, a tool for… searching code. Code search allows you to search by regular expression, license, project name.language, filename. It even searches within tar files.

It’s a neat tool. I’m not sure how useful it will end up being unless it can pinpoint the most recent (or a specific) version of a piece of code, or the master copy. Once code is out there it’s often proliferated to the point where the problem isn’t so much finding it as finding the version you’re looking for.

One thing I wish for… I wish it would pretty-print, or do syntax coloring, when it shows the code.

I tried to find PC/IP and Netwatch with it (I have a late copy of CMU’s, but not the final MIT release) and failed to, but I did find lots of other stuff I wasn’t looking for, and it may not even be out there. I did find a few instances of “OpenXM”, some banished software that drives an XM PCR receiver over USB… XM apparently “cease and desist”ed it nearly out of existence a few years ago.

Via: Google Code Search

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