Professional Visual Studio® 2008

5.1. Introducing Find and Replace

The find-and-replace functionality in Visual Studio 2008 is split into two broad tiers with a shared dialog and similar features: Quick Find, and the associated Quick Replace, are for searches that you need to perform quickly on the document or project currently open in the IDE. The two tools have limited options to filter and extend the search, but as you'll see in a moment, even those options provide a powerful search engine that goes beyond what you'll find in most applications.

The second, extended tier consists of the Find in Files and Replace in Files commands. These functions enable you to broaden the search beyond the current solution to whole folders and folder structures, and even to perform mass replacements on any matches for the given criteria and filters. Additional options are available to you when using these commands, and search results can be placed in one of two tool windows so you can easily navigate them.

In addition to these two groups of find-and-replace tools, Visual Studio also offers two other ways to navigate code:

• Find Symbols: You can use Find Symbols to locate the symbols of various objects and members within your code, rather than strings of text.

• Bookmarks: You can bookmark any location throughout your code and then easily go back to it, either with the Bookmarks window or by using the Bookmark menu and Toolbar commands.

5.1.1. Quick Find

Quick Find is the term that Visual Studio 2008 uses to refer to the most basic ...