Visual Studio Hacks [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Hack 18. Search Files Quickly

Visual Studio's default Find
function is pretty run-of-the-mill. Perk it up with incremental
search.

Most users of Visual Studio are
already familiar with the normal Find functionality, which lets you
enter a search term, and then Visual Studio will look for that term
in your current file. There is another type of
search, an incremental
search, that lets you enter your search term character by
character while Visual Studio actively finds the first instance of
that string in your current document. You can then quickly jump to
each instance that is found in your document. All of this can be done
with just a couple of quick keystrokes.

The first keystroke you need to remember is
Ctrl-I
(Edit.IncrementalSearch). First, you will need to open a document,
then press this keystroke. This will turn incremental search on,
which turns your cursor into what can only be described as a pair of
binoculars with a down arrow. The next thing you need to do is simply
start typing your search term character by character. Visual Studio
will jump to the first match for that character combination and
continue to search when you enter more characters. There is no text
box area to type in; just start typing and you will see Visual Studio
react. Figure 3-11 shows incremental search in
action. After having typed in the string
"Car", you can see that it is now
selected.

Figure 3-11. Incremental search

Visual Studio has highlighted the first instance of this search term,
but you may be looking for a different instance of this term. You can
simply press Ctrl-I again and Visual Studio will jump to the next
matching instance in this document. You can also step backward by
pressing
Ctrl-Shift-I
(Edit.ReverseIncrementalSearch). This keystroke will jump back to the
previous matching instance in the document.

You can cancel your search at any time by pressing Esc or clicking
anywhere with the mouse.

Incremental search is simple but can save a lot of time, especially
when you are trying to jump quickly between different sections of a
file or looking for every instance of a certain term.