Google’s new service will allow developers to search for software code. Google Code Search has indexed several billions lines of code from archives hosted on the web, as well as software control repositories from services like SourceForge and Google Code which host open source projects.

Google has also published an API that allows third-party developers to integrate a code search box into their development tools. Google Code Search allows programmers to learn programming language by finding code samples to get a better understanding of the functions.

The new service allows searches to be limited to specific languages such as Java or C++ as well as software licences.

It will not index JavaScript as it is embedded on live web pages, but developers can search for that code with the regular Google search engine.

Google is not the first to unveil a code search service. Previously, Famous book publisher O’Reilly launched a beta of its Code Search service last month that allows users to search a combined 2.6 million lines of code published in its books.

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