Visual Studio - A Common Replace Scenario

• John Katsiotis
• 5 comments

Visual Studio has a build in Replace function that uses Regular Expressions. Let’s consider the following scenario:

Although it’s not “good” code many times a developer has to write the following code :

class Program
{
    MyObj _currentObj = new MyObj();

    void Bind(MyObj objToBind)
    {
        _currentObj.Name = objToBind.Name;
        _currentObj.Age = objToBind.Age;
    }
}

class MyObj
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public int Age { get; set; }
}

The part that I want to point out is the Bind method where we explicitly set the properties of _currentObj.

So far so good! But wait, a new requirement comes and “demands” to writer another method that does the opposite:

void ApplyValues(MyObj objToApply)
{
    objToApply.Name = _currentObj.Name;
    objToApply.Age = _currentObj.Age;
}

So what basically we did was to flip our statements. That’s OK for two properties but if you have 10? 20? or more? (well use reflection ) but if you must write it explicitly here is a Regex that will help you do it:

Find what:
{[^=]+}{=}{[^;]+}

Replace with:
\3\2\1

And here is a screenshot from the Replace window inside VS:

Be careful: Always replace in Selection to avoid possible mistakes. Also, there is a slight issue with spaces after you perform the replace but pressing Ctrl + K, Ctrl + D (formats the code) should solve it!

Use it and change it to fit your own needs!

Cheers!

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