Visual Studio macro to find a string and delete matching lines - visual-studio

Question

In my Visual Studio (2010 C#) solution, I need to delete all lines of code that contain a matching string pattern.
For example, I want to delete all lines that contain ".BackColor = System.Drawing.Color.Yellow;". The Find and Replace feature of Visual Studio isn't good enough, because you cannot tell it to wipe out the matching lines.
So I think I would need a macro for that. Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

You can use the "Find and Replace" feature of Visual Studio to delete matching lines.
The key is to match the whole line including the end of line character as well. You can do this in wildcard or regular expression mode. In wildcard mode, begin the expression with * and end the expression with *\n. The asterisks will match any number of characters, and the \n will match the end of line character.
In your case, your find query would be "*.BackColor = System.Drawing.Color.Yellow;*\n". The replace field should then be left blank.
To enable wildcard mode, select 'Wildcards' in the 'Use:' field of the 'Find options' section of the 'Find and Replace' dialog.

Answer 2

With Visual Studio 2015, 2017, 2019, 2022 this worked for me. Open Search window, check the "use regular expressions" checkmark. Fill "find what" with
.*myCodeFragmentHere.*\r?\n
fill "replace" with an empty string.
Remove all regexp (brackets, dots) from the code fragment in your search expression.

Answer 3

I tend to create macros in VS by running the macro recorder then editing the resulting code.
So, manually search for the pattern, and press F3. Stop the macro then (or press the line-start key, select to end of line, press delete and then stop the macro).
Edit the macro, the command to delete a line is:
DTE.ActiveDocument.Selection.SelectLine()
DTE.ActiveDocument.Selection.Delete()
You can set the find text with FindText:
DTE.ActiveDocument.Selection.FindText(".BackColor = System.Drawing.Color.Yellow;", vsFindOptions.vsFindOptionsFromStart)

Answer 4

Building upon #HolgerJeromin's answer: instead of guessing the right indentation match (could be tabs could be spaces could be more or less), I prefer matching the beginning of the line using the ^\s* pattern.
For example, to remove all lines having a ProducesResponseType attribute, I use
^\s*\[ProducesResponseType.*\n
(works on Windows too using VS 2019).

Answer 5

For Visual Studio 2015 (in which there are no macros and no wildcards), I did the following:
Open Find and Replace (Ctrl+H)
Set to use Regular Expressions (Alt+E)
Set the Find box to
({line of code string})\r?\n({next line tabbing})
Leave the Replace box empty
Replace
Where-
{line of code string} = the line of code you wish to remove. Note you need to escape characters such as parenthesis and quotes with a backward slash ()
{next line tabbing} = the number of spaces preceding the next line of code (without this your line will be removed but the next line would have double the spaces before it
For example, to remove
DoSomething("hello");
From -
class A
{
void SomeMethod()
{
DoSomething("hello");
DoSomethingElse();
}
}
Replace the following
(DoSomething(\"hello\")\;)\r?\n({ })

Answer 6

I was trying to remove an attribute ([OperationContract] in my case) and none of the other answers worked for me. I finally got it to work by using the following:
\[OperationContract\]\r\n\t\t (Use Regular Expressions)