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Replace In Files Command

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Applies to: yesVisual Studio noVisual Studio for Mac

Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

Replaces text in files using a subset of the options available on the Replace in Files tab of the Find and Replace window.

Syntax

Edit.ReplaceinFiles findwhat replacewith [/all] [/case]
[/ext:extensions] [/keep] [/lookin:searchpath] [/options] [/regex]
[/reset] [/stop] [/sub] [/text2] [/wild] [/word]

Arguments

findwhat

Required. The text to match.

replacewith

Required. The text to substitute for the matched text.

Switches

/all or /a

Optional. Replaces all occurrences of the search text with the replacement text.

/case or /c

Optional. Matches occur only if when the uppercase and lowercase characters exactly match those specified in the findwhat argument.

/ext: extensions

Optional. Specifies the file extensions for the files to be searched.

/keep or /k

Optional. Specifies that all modified files are left open.

/lookin: searchpath

Optional. Directory to search. If the path contains spaces, enclose the entire path in quotation marks.

/options or /t

Optional. Displays a list of the current find option settings and does not perform a search.

/regex or /r

Optional. Uses pre-defined special characters in the findwhat argument as notations that represent patterns of text rather than the literal characters. For a complete list of regular expression characters, see Regular Expressions.

/reset or /e

Optional. Returns the find options to their default settings and does not perform a search.

/stop

Optional. Halts the current search operation if one is in progress. Replace ignores all other arguments when /stop has been specified. For example, to stop the current replacement you would enter the following:

>Edit.ReplaceinFiles /stop

/sub or /s

Optional. Searches the subfolders within the directory specified in the /lookin:searchpath argument.

/text2 or /2

Optional. Displays the results of the replacement in the Find Results 2 window.

/wild or /l

Optional. Uses pre-defined special characters in the findwhat argument as notations to represent a character or sequence of characters.

/word or /w

Optional. Searches for only whole words.

Example

This example searches for btnCancel and replaces it with btnReset in all .cls files located in the folder "my visual studio projects" and displays the replacement information in the Find Results 2 window.

>Edit.ReplaceinFiles btnCancel btnReset /lookin:"c:/my visual studio projects" /ext:.cls /text2

See also