Identifying software components in a software codebase

A system for detecting third party software components in a source file, comprising:

• one or more computing devices;
• a reference database storing code signatures corresponding to a plurality of third party software files;
• a signature generator, implemented on the one or more computing devices, configured to:
• receive a source file containing source code;
• determine a programming language of the source file;
• identify a list of language reserved keywords and key phrases associated with the programming language;
• remove from the source file text that does not match a language reserved keyword or key phrase of the identified list;
• remove from the source file language-specific control characters and control character sequences;
• replace each language reserved keyword and key phrase of the source file with a corresponding compact byte representation to produce an encoded sequence;
• and
• generate a code signature for the source file based on a hash of the one or more representations;
• an analyzer, implemented able on the one or more computing devices, configured to:
• compare the generated code signature to the signatures stored in the reference database to identify matching third party software files;
• and
• create a list of the identified third party software files;
• and
• a presenter, implemented on the one or more computing devices, configured to present the list of identified third party software files to a user.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage device having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by at least one computing device, causes the at least one computing device to perform operations comprising:

• receiving a source file containing source code at a server;
• generating a code signature for the source file based, the generating comprising:
• determining a language of the source file;
• identifying a list of language reserved keywords and key phrases associated with the programing language;
• removing from the source file text that does not match a language reserved keyword or key phrase of the identified list;
• removing from the source file language-specific control characters and control character sequences;
• replacing each language reserved keyword and key phrase of the source file with a corresponding compact byte representation to produce an encoded sequence;
• and
• hashing the encoded sequence to produce the code signature;
• comparing the generated code signature to signatures stored in a reference database to identify matching third Party software files, the reference database storing a plurality of code signatures corresponding to the third party software files;
• creating a list of the identified third party software files;
• and
• presenting the list of identified third party software files to a user.