I am refactoring a C++ codebase in Visual Studio 2005. I'm about half way through this process now and I've commented out a lot of old code and replaced or moved it. Now I'm searching to see that I have to change next but the search function keeps bringing me the old commented out stuff I no longer care about. I don't really want to delete that old code yet, just in case.
Is there any way I can search all files in the solution and get results ignoring what is commented out? I don't see a way in visual studio itself, is the perhaps a plug-in that would do it?
As the other provided solutions didn't work for me, I finally discovered the following solution:
^~(:b*//).*your_search_term
Short explanation:
^ from beginning of line
~( NOT the following
:b* any number of white spaces, followed by
// the comment start
) end of NOT
.* any character may appear before
your_search_term your search term :-)
Obviouly this will only work for // and ///-style comments.
You must click "Use Regular Expressions " Button (dot and asterisk) on your find window to apply regex search
In newer versions of visual studio .net regex is used which has a slightly different syntax:
^(?![ \t]*//).*your_search_term
My take:
yes you can use regular expressions, those tend to be too slow and thinking about them distracts from focusing on real stuff - your software.
I prefer non-obtrusive semi-inteligent methods:
Poor man's method:
Find references if you happen to use intelisense on
Or even better:
Visual assist and it's colored "Find all References" and "Go To" mapped to handy shortcuts. This speeds up navigation tremendously.
If you comment your old code with // you can use regular expressions while searching for something in your codebase. Something like this for example: ^[^/][^/].*your_function_name.*.
Previous answer gave a false-positive on cases where otherwise matching lines were placed on lines containing other source:
++i; // your_search_term gets found, don't want it found
So replaced the :b* with .* and added the <> so only entire words are found, and then went after some of the older C-style comments where there's a /* on the line:
^~(.*//)~(.*/\*).*<your_search_term>
In my case I was hunting for all instances of new, not amenable to refactor assistance, and boatloads of false-positives. I also haven't figured out how to avoid matches in quoted strings.
Just to add on, as I was doing a "find all" for division operator used in the code, used the below to exclude comments as well as </ and /> from aspx files:
^~(.*//)~(.*/\*)~(.*\<\/)~(.*/\>).*/
In Visual Basic within Visual Studio 2015, I was able to search for text outside of comments by adapting glassiko's comment from the most upvoted answer
^(?![ \t]*[']).*mysearchterm
And in C# you would use glassiko's comment exactly as it was
^(?![ \t]*//).*mysearchterm
Better use \s I think. ^(?![\s]*//).*your_search_term
delete the commented out code, it is in source control right? there is no need to keep it in the file as well.
Related
One thing that constantly annoys me about VS is that when I do a Find or Find all, it looks in comments, strings, and other places. When I'm trying to find a particular bit of code, like and rent, it finds it all over. Is there a way to limit searches just to code?
Not sure if there is a specific setting to ignore comments, but you could do a regex find. For example, assuming you want to find "text", you could use this:
^(?!\s*?//).*?text
Caveats:
Assumes comments start with // as first non-whitespace characters. E.g. C# comment types
Doesn't work for comments at the end of code lines (only comments on their own lines)
Doesn't work with block comments, for example /* comment */
So overall it isn't perfect by any means, but depending how many hits you are getting, it might help to cut them down which can be useful if you have a lot of false positives in one-liner comments
The 'Find All References' function may suit you : it ignores all commented-out code and text in strings. CTRL+K, R is the keyboard shortcut.
(Note that it's designed for going from a specific instance of a search string to all other instances. so if you haven't already found an instance of what you're searching for, you would have to (temporarily) type one in to the editor window, then search. Also it's not available for all languages : I know it works fine for C#, though.)
While programming I often realize that I need to add something before already typed code. For example I type the name of the variable:
input[0]
and then I realize that my array is of type string and I need to convert it. So, I move to the beginning of the word (with Ctrl-Left Arrow) and start typing
Convert.To|input[0]
with pipe used to show the position of my cursor. I get some suggestions from Intellisense, including the ToInt32() method I am looking for. But as long as I confirm this suggestion with Tab or Space, I get the following:
Convert.ToInt32(|)[0]
So, the text from the cursor position to the end of the word is substituted with suggestion, and this is definitely not what I want.
This problem is not specific for VS 2012 and might be due to some extensions I have installed, but my attempt to pursue its origin did not yield anything. I have following extensions installed: ReSharper, PowerCommands, Productivity Power Tools.
If you are entering an unrelated expression before an identifier, add a space before you start typing the new expression. This will prevent the completion from replacing the existing identifier.
For example, if | marks the caret, the following scenario would avoid the problem you are facing.
Convert.To| input
This code completion feature is designed to prevent the insertion of incorrect identifiers. If Visual Studio behaved like some other IDEs I know of, using the code completion feature in your original example would result in the insertion of ToInt32input, which would never be valid.
If you are interested in additional thoughts regarding this feature in general, I have described this as the Extend (default for Visual Studio) and No-extend (default for NetBeans, Eclipse, and others) modes in my blog article Code Completion filtering, selection, and replacement algorithms.
A two years later answer. But it might still be useful for some.
What helped for me in VS2015 (which might also work in VS2012) is to add the a space character to the list of 'Member List Commit Characters' in the Intellisense settings.
After this the characters after the cursor are not removed by an auto-completion.
Is there a way to perform searches (Find / Find in Files) in visual studio that will exclude matches in comments? While sometimes it is useful, other times it is the opposite. For all of the options presented, I figured it would be in there, but I can't find it if it is.
I am using VS 2010/2012 about equally by the way.
Here's the regex that works for me for newer versions of Visual Studio:
^(?![ \t]*//).*your_search_term
Note that the syntax changed as of VS 2012:
Visual Studio 2012 uses .NET Framework regular expressions to find and
replace text. In Visual Studio 2010 and earlier versions, Visual
Studio used custom regular expression syntax in the Find and Replace
windows.
Reference: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/2k3te2cs(v=vs.110).aspx
you could try the regex as below:
^~(:b*//).*your_search_term
Short explanation:
^ from beginning of line
~( NOT the following
:b* any number of white spaces, followed by
// the comment start
) end of NOT
.* any character may appear before
your_search_term your search term :-)
saw this at another post.
I don't believe it's an option in VS. You could try regular expressions, but those are limited by how creative you can be. It seems like it would be not entirely difficult to search for lines not beginning with // using a regex.
You probably mean any comments, both single- (//) and MULTI-LINE (/**/).
The other answers only deal with single-line-comments. So here comes my VS Code-compatible Regex for both of them at the same time:
(?<!//.*)(?!(/\*).*)YOUR_SEARCH_TERM(?![^/\*]*?\*/)
Explanation:
(?<!//.*) is a negative look-behind against single-line-comments (//)
(?!(/\*).*) invalidates your search term if it is preceded by /*
(?![^/\*]*?\*/) invalidates your search term if it is followed by */ (short of a /* between your search term and itself, because then your search term would be outside of /**/ and you want it to be matched again).
To use it in VS Code, just type Ctrl + F and tick the regex-icon in the search-field popping up (with void being your exemplary search term):
In vs.net, I want to search for all occurances of
[someWord]
in my .sql file, and replace it with
[SomeWord]
Is this possible? (notice the uppercasing of the first character in the result)
Yes you can do Regex searches/Replaces in vs.net, just make sure to check the box in the dialog. The regex syntax is different from the Perl/.Net one though. Pay attention to the differences in syntax.
There's some reference here:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000633.html
If it's just a certain word:-
s/\[someWord\]/[SomeWord]/
But it might just be better to use a replace function
If it's anything in square brackets.
s/\[[a-zA-Z]+\]/[\u\1]/
Not sure but you might open that sql file externally is some editor like notepad++ and replace the stuff accordingly.
Here, this is VS Addin for regex search and replace found on CodeProject. Be warned that the code was for VS 2003, but can be recompiled I'm sure for later versions of VS.NET.
Hope this helps,
Best regards,
Tom.
I have a solution with multiple projects and we need to do some serious global replacements.
Is there a way to do a wildcard replacement where some values remain in after the replace?
So, for instance if I want every HttpContext.Current.Session[“whatevervalue”] to become HttpContext.Current.Session[“whatevervalue”].ToString() the string value being passed in will be respected? I don’t want to replace “whatevervalue” I just want to append a .ToString() where the pattern matches.
Is this possible in Visual Studio?
First, Backup your Projects, just in case... Always a good idea before mass replacements.
Then, in the Find/Replace Dialog, select the Use Regular Expressions checkbox:
In the Find box, use the pattern:
HttpContext\.Current\.Session\["{.#}"\]
and in the Replace box, use:
HttpContext.Current.Session["\1"].ToString()
Easy...use regular expressions and grouping.
Find what:
(HttpContext.Current.Session[“whatevervalue”])
Replace with:
\0.ToString();
Remember to check the Use: and select Regular expressions
You want to open the "Find Options" expander and select the "Use Regular Expressions" option. After you've done that, you want these as your find/replace entries:
Find:
HttpContext\.Current\.Session\[{("([^"]|\")*")}\]
Replace:
HttpContext.Current.Session[\1].ToString()
Additional Note:
Once you've enabled regular expressions option, you'll be able to use the right-pointing triangle buttons to access snippets of Visual Studio's Regex syntax.
Also note that Visual Studio's Regex syntax is pretty ghetto, as it hasn't changed since the days of Visual Studio 6 (or earlier?)--so don't take any syntax elements for granted.
For example, one might expect that my find regex above is broken because the backslash before the double-quote is not properly escaped, but in reality, putting a double-backslash there will break the expression, not fix it.
None of these answers seem to work in Visual Studio 2013, as that version seems to have finally made the switch to standard RegEx. However, those who are non-RegEx Experts or those who are used to the old VS Find/Replace RegEx syntax will find the RegEx Shortcut buttons very useful.
Please see this answer for more information, including Find/Replace/Surround With examples:
Visual Studio 'Find and Surround With' instead of 'Find and Replace'
You can use Visual Assist for tasks like this. It's a powerful tool for different kinds of refactoring.
You could also consider using the free download tool Refactor available at http://www.devexpress.com/Products/NET/IDETools/RefactorASP/
It does a whole lot more than just find & replace, which they call renaming members with more understandable names. Its various features will easily help you to improve your code.