Visual Studio Search Results, Programmatically

If you want to log searches for code or perhaps wanted to provide a better UI for search results, then you need to listen to search events with a Visual Studio Addin/VSPackage.

Unfortunately, there still isn’t a direct interface for getting search results… you actually have to copy the text from the UI window…yuck.

Here is some code that does this:

First, setup the find “done” event handler. EnvDTE.FindEvents m_findEvents;

protected override void Initialize()
{
    Trace.WriteLine (string.Format(CultureInfo.CurrentCulture, "Entering Initialize() of: {0}", this.ToString()));
    base.Initialize();

    var dte = (EnvDTE.DTE)GetService(typeof(EnvDTE.DTE));
    if (dte != null)
    {
       m_findEvents = dte.Events.FindEvents;
       m_findEvents.FindDone += new EnvDTE._dispFindEvents_FindDoneEventHandler(m_findEvents_FindDone);
    }
}

Now, process the results by grabbing the find results window and copying the text in the window.

void m_findEvents_FindDone(EnvDTE.vsFindResult Result, bool Cancelled)
{
    var dte = (EnvDTE.DTE)GetService(typeof(EnvDTE.DTE));
    // Get search term, window location, etc...;
    var x = dte.Find.FindWhat;
    var guid = dte.Find.ResultsLocation == vsFindResultsLocation.vsFindResults1 ?
            "{0F887920-C2B6-11D2-9375-0080C747D9A0}" : "{0F887921-C2B6-11D2-9375-0080C747D9A0}";

    var findWindow = dte.Windows.Item(guid);
    var selection = findWindow.Selection as TextSelection;
    // Get search text results;
    var endPoint = selection.AnchorPoint.CreateEditPoint();
    endPoint.EndOfDocument();
    var text = endPoint.GetLines(1, endPoint.Line);
 }

References:

• A good reference on tool windows.
• An older post on this topic.

In order to get “Find Symbol” results, might have to use a mpf service…