Global Find and Replace in Visual Studio

Question

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?

Answer 1

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

Answer 2

You can use Visual Assist for tasks like this. It's a powerful tool for different kinds of refactoring.

Answer 3

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()

Answer 4

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.

Answer 5

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.