The xbase bundle is part of the xpackages distribution The xbase bundle provides the packages xparse and template, and the support package ldcsetup; these packages require that the expl3 bundle is installed.

The xparse provides a high-level interface for declaring document commands, e.g., a uniform way to define commands taking optional arguments, optional stars (and others), mandatory arguments and more.

The template package provides an interface for defining generic functions using a key=val syntax.

The ldcsetup package establishes prototype LaTeX 3 coding conventions needed by xparse and xbase, but is slowly being stripped of functionality as it is transferred to packages of the expl3 bundle.

All files are also available in the Subversion (SVN) repository of the LaTeX3 Project.

The bundle on CTAN is a snapshot of the SVN repository as of 2008-08-04.

The author is The LaTeX Team. The package is Copyright © 2004-2008 LaTeX3 Project.