The term codebase, or code base, is used in software development

Software development

Software development is the development of a software product...

 to mean the whole collection of source code

Source code

In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...

 used to build a particular application

Application software

Application software, also known as an application or an "app", is computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. Examples include enterprise software, accounting software, office suites, graphics software and media players. Many application programs deal principally with...

 or component. Typically, the codebase includes only human-written source code files, and not, e.g., source code files generated by other tools or binary library files. However, it generally does include configuration and property files.

The codebase for a project is typically stored in a source control repository. A source code repository is a place where large amounts of source code

Source code

In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...

 are kept, either publicly or privately. They are often used by multi-developer projects to handle various versions and developers submitting various patches of code in an organized fashion. Subversion and Mercurial

Mercurial

Mercurial is a cross-platform, distributed revision control tool for software developers. It is mainly implemented using the Python programming language, but includes a binary diff implementation written in C. It is supported on Windows and Unix-like systems, such as FreeBSD, Mac OS X and Linux...

 are popular tools used to handle this workflow, and are common in open source projects.

Referring to multiple codebases as “distinct” declares that there are independent implementations without shared source code and that historically, these implementations did not evolve from a common codebase. In the case of standards, this may be a way of demonstrating interoperability by showing two independent pieces of software that implement a given standard.

See also

• Apache Software Foundation
  Apache Software Foundation
  The Apache Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation to support Apache software projects, including the Apache HTTP Server. The ASF was formed from the Apache Group and incorporated in Delaware, U.S., in June 1999.The Apache Software Foundation is a decentralized community of developers...
  
  
• Applet
  Applet
  In computing, an applet is any small application that performs one specific task that runs within the scope of a larger program, often as a plug-in. An applet typically also refers to Java applets, i.e., programs written in the Java programming language that are included in a web page...
  
  
• Bonsai CVS code management system
  Bonsai CVS code management system
  Bonsai is a web-based CVS repository browser designed for large programming projects. It was initially developed to fill the Mozilla project's need for good tools to allow multiple developers to edit its extremely large codebase.- Features :...
  
  
• Codase
  Codase
  Codase is a syntax-aware source code search engine that allows software developers to search Open Source repositories to find relevant source code. The alpha version went live on September 9, 2005. A subsequent beta was released on November 10, 2005. . Codase claims to host over 250M lines of...
  
  
• Codeplex
• CORBA
  Çorba
  Chorba , ciorbă , shurpa , shorpo , or sorpa is one of various kinds of soup or stew found in national cuisines across Middle East...
  
  
• Comparison of free software hosting facilities
  Comparison of free software hosting facilities
  A source code repository or source code escrow is a file archive and web hosting facility where large amounts of source code are kept, either publicly or privately. They are often used by open source projects and other multi-developer projects to handle various versions and developers submitting...
  
  
• FishEye (software)
• Forge (software)
  Forge (software)
  A software forge is a collaboration platform allowing collaborative software development over the Internet. A forge platform aggregates a set of applications with integrated Web interfaces, and generally hosts multiple independent projects...
  
  
• GNU
  GNU
  GNU is a Unix-like computer operating system developed by the GNU project, ultimately aiming to be a "complete Unix-compatible software system"...
  
  
• List of free software project directories
• List of revision control software
• Project Kenai
  Project Kenai
  Project Kenai is a collaborative hosting site for free and open source projects, launched by Sun Microsystems and now owned by Oracle. The service will be discontinued move the existing Kenai.com projects over to the Java.net domain for public use as part of Oracle's restructuring of...
  
  
• Revision control
  Revision control
  Revision control, also known as version control and source control , is the management of changes to documents, programs, and other information stored as computer files. It is most commonly used in software development, where a team of people may change the same files...
  
  
• Snippet (programming)
  Snippet (programming)
  Snippet is a programming term for a small region of re-usable source code, machine code or text. Ordinarily, these are formally-defined operative units to incorporate into larger programming modules...
  
  
• SourceForge.net
  SourceForge.net
  SourceForge is a web-based source code repository. It acts as a centralized location for software developers to control and manage open source software development. The website runs a version of SourceForge Enterprise Edition, forked from the last open-source version available...
  
  
• Subversion (software)