How do you check if a variable is used in a project programmatically?

Question

In VB.NET (or C#) how can I determine programmatically if a public variable in class helper.vb is used anywhere within a project?

Answer 1

Find all References is your friend.

Answer 2

From MSDN

The Find object allows you to search for and replace text in places of the environment that support such operations, such as the Code editor.

It is intended primarily for macro recording purposes. The editor's macro recording mechanism uses Find rather than TextSelection.FindPattern so that you can discover the global find functionality, and because it generally is more useful than using the TextSelection Object for such operations as Find-in-files.

If the search operation is asynchronous, such as Find All, then the FindDone Event occurs when the operation completes.

Sub ActionExample()
   Dim objFind As Find = objTextDoc.DTE.Find

   ' Set the find options.
   objFind.Action = vsFindAction.vsFindActionFindAll
   objFind.Backwards = False
   objFind.FilesOfType = "*.vb"
   objFind.FindWhat = "<Variable>"
   objFind.KeepModifiedDocumentsOpen = False
   objFind.MatchCase = True
   objFind.MatchInHiddenText = True
   objFind.MatchWholeWord = True
   objFind.PatternSyntax = vsFindPatternSyntax.vsFindPatternSyntaxLiteral
   objFind.ResultsLocation = vsFindResultsLocation.vsFindResultsNone
   objFind.SearchPath = "c:\<Your>\<Project>\<Path>"
   objFind.SearchSubfolders = False
   objFind.Target = vsFindTarget.vsFindTargetCurrentDocument
   ' Perform the Find operation.
   objFind.Execute()
End Sub



<System.ContextStaticAttribute()> _
Public WithEvents FindEvents As EnvDTE.FindEvents

Public Sub FindEvents_FindDone(ByVal Result As EnvDTE.vsFindResult, _
                               ByVal Cancelled As Boolean) _
                               Handles FindEvents.FindDone
   Select Case Result 
        case vsFindResultFound
             'Found!
        case else
             'Not Found
   Ens select
End Sub