Finding blocks of C# comments in Visual Studio

Question

When using the Find command in Visual Studio, what is a regex that can be used to find blocks of comments in C# code (i.e. comments on consecutive lines) e.g.

// No need to find single line comment
void Foo()
{
    // I want to find this line.
    // And this line, because they are
    // on consecutive lines
}

I sometimes will rework code by commenting out the original version, work on a copy, and then later on coming back and to delete the original commented out code. I'm looking for a regex that will help me to locate the commented out code.

This is a kind of roll-your-own source control? The better thing to do would be to add //TODO comments, which show up in the Task List. You can even make custom task tokens (see link I provided). — Ron Beyer
– Ron Beyer, Commented Apr 5, 2018 at 20:31
Good idea to use TODO. I use my process built over years of using other editors. — Phillip Ngan
– Phillip Ngan, Commented Apr 5, 2018 at 20:50

jdphenix · Accepted Answer · 2018-04-05 20:34:41Z

2

Here's a starting point. This obviously misses /* comment */ comments.

//.*\r?\n.*//

//               match // literally
.*               match any character 0 to unlimited times
\r?              match a carriage return optionally
\n               match a new line
.*               match any character 0 to unlimited times
//               match // literally

If you flag comments with TODO, i.e. //TODO: Fix this broken thing, you can easily find them in the task list later (View menu, Task List).

answered Apr 5, 2018 at 20:34

jdphenix

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nnamdi · Accepted Answer · 2018-04-05 20:59:35Z

2

This will do it [\s\S]([^a-zA-Z/][^\n\r][a-zA-Z/]?//.*[/]*)

See https://regex101.com/r/wsGNZy/1

answered Apr 5, 2018 at 20:59

nnamdi

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1 Comment

Stephan Stamm Over a year ago

Finds each line seperately, instead of all comment lines en bloc.

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