Codebase

In software development, a codebase (or code base) refers to a whole collection of source code that is used to build a particular software system, application, or software component. Typically, a codebase includes only human-written source code files; thus, a codebase usually does not include source code files generated by tools (generated files) or binary library files (object files), as they can be built from the human-written source code. However, it generally does include configuration and property files, as they are the data necessary for the build.

A codebase is typically stored in a source control repository that belongs to a revision control system, though for smaller projects it may be instead kept simply as a set of files; however, even the Linux kernel used to be maintained as a set of files for many years. A source code repository is a place where large amounts of source code are kept, either publicly or privately. Source code repositories are used most basically for backups and versioning, and on multi-developer projects to handle various source code versions and to provide aid in resolving conflicts that arise from developers submitting conflicting modifications. Subversion, Git and Mercurial are examples of popular tools used to handle this workflow, which are common in open source projects.

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