Ask HN: How do I search source code of popular projects only?

by zb3 on 9/16/2015, 9:06 AM with 5 comments

I've tried to search code on GitHub, Codesearch, Krugle, openhub etc, but I've run into a strange problem.

Every time I would like to see how some feature is being used in practice, I am bombarded with results coming from small, "Hello World"ish projects, that are mostly unknown, and therefore not reviewed, and don't really show how a feature can be used in practice. Even worse, since I am searching for a C code, they could exhibit some bad practices I'd like to avoid...

I couldn't find any option to sort the code by any popularity factor like stars, forks, or even issues... On GitHub, I can only sort repositories by stars or forks, not the code results.

So is there any way to limit code results to projects that are somewhat popular? Did I miss any switch?

  • by madhouse on 9/16/2015, 9:11 AM

    You can limit your search to certain repositories on GitHub, with advanced search: https://github.com/search/advanced

    You will need to enter the repositories by hand, though. Mind you, writing a small tool that'd list the most popular/forked/starred/etc C repos, and do a search for you in those should be a few minute task.

  • by 0x400614 on 9/18/2015, 4:44 PM

    Github sucks at code search. Have you heard of OpenGrok?