In Xcode < 4, you could hold the "option" key, and the "Replace All" button would change to "Replace in Selection". As of Xcode 4, this does nothing. Anyone know if there's a new way to do it, or is it bug filing time?
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11 Answers
This appears to be working again now, at least in Xcode 4.4.1.
When the find/replace bar appears at the top of the editor, holding down the option key on the keyboard causes "Replace in Selection" to appear in lieu of "Replace All."
I'm glad, because this was an ANNOYING omission.
6 Comments
DougW
Verified! Glad they decided to rejoin the 21st century of IDEs. Thanks for the update--I'd given up checking.
PeterT
Since when is find / replace in selection that modern?
Shaun Neal
And when is having to hold down a secret hidden key to get some alternate selection being "21st century"?
hariseldon78
The beautiful thing is that your selection is canceled as soon as you type something in the Find field.. I'll send a radar
pkamb
Holding Option key seems to no longer work in Xcode 13 in 2021?
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Another workaround:
- In Xcode, select the text, press copy
In a terminal session:
pbpaste|sed 's/SOURCETEXT/NEWTEXT/g'|pbcopyReturn to Xcode window, press paste
Since the original should still be selected, it will just be replaced. You could probably build a simple shell script to do this.
Doug
1 Comment
DougW
Clever idea :). Still shouldn't be missing from the IDE in the first place, but +1 for creativity.
A few images to supplement the chosen answer:
And holding down Option:
See also
2 Comments
Micah Montoya
This is so messed up. You shouldn't have to hold down a "mystery" key to do this. Should just be a dropdown list to choose from what you want. If you already have a selection of text chosen, it should default to this behavior. IDE still has a bit of growing up to do.
Kenny Mann
Almost 10 years later and this is still the case.
Seems like missing functionality. You should file a bug report.
1 Comment
DougW
Time changes, and so do answers. It appears that this functionality has been restored as of XCode 4.4.1, as pointed out by @SweetLou33 in the new answer.
I'm upset that they took out this functionality, as I used it constantly, but here's my workaround. Copy your selected text from Xcode4 to TextEdit or some other word processor, do the find and replace there, and then copy the results back into Xcode.
It's not sexy but it's worth it if you do a lot of these "find and replace on my selection", and you leave the word processor open in Spaces as you work.
They should add "my selection" as an alternative to "workspace" and "my scope".
1 Comment
DougW
@user677626 - Yeah I've done this a bunch now... it's absolutely inexcusable that I have to do that in a modern IDE.
There is another way only replace the matches you find, rather than just this one or all of them.
I suggest you save a copy first, just in case....
- In Find and Replace, Show Find Options (you can do this by pressing the magnifying glass).
- Press Preview.
- Uncheck all the ones you don't want replacing.
- Press Replace
Hope that helps, it did me.
1 Comment
DougW
Thanks for the suggestion Chris. Should work for smaller projects. Unfortunately the project I'm usually working in has many hundreds of source files so this really ends up being more work than the copy/paste solution. EDIT - I assume you're talking about the project find/replace? I'm talking about the find/replace for the current working file.
Not ideal, but not too bad:
- Do a find and replace in workspace (cmd-opt-shift-f) enter your desired find/replace
- Enter your desired search term and hit return
- Select the range of replacements from the list of matches on the left
- Hit replace (not replace all)
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To replace text in a selection using Xcode 9
- Press Option-Command-F to bring up the find/replace box.
- Enter the search and replace string. Changing the search string will lose any existing selection, so..
- Make your selection (again). (If you don't do this, the selection will be the first search string found only)
- Hold down the key and "Replace All" will change to "Replace Selection", then click it.
Once you understand that you make your selection AFTER you have entered the search string, then this is not that clumbersome and works fine.
Comments
I find alt-command-f easier for local find and replace (4.3) and then working around your selection.
Comments
EthenA.Wilson asked in a comment to the OP a couple of days ago:
"Is there a way to do this in Xcode 5?"
For the benefit of those who, like me, had been searching for it, here's how:
After you put your Find and Replace terms in the bars at the top left-hand side of the editor page, select the text you want to search in, then look at the top right-hand side (same bar). You'll see where it says "All", right next to "Replace." Now press the Option key. "All" will change to "All in Selection." Click it, and you're done. Could be a bit more intuitive, but the functionality is there in Xcode 5.
Naturally, good idea to take a snapshot before you click!
HTH!
Comments
Not sure which feature prior to Xcode 4 you're referring to, but the shortcut Command+Shift+E gives you "Use Selection for Replace". If you're talking about "Find and Replace in Workspace" (Command+Option+Shift+F), then what you need to do is run your find and then hold down "Shift" or "Command" on the selections shown and then hit "Replace".
2 Comments
DougW
Hey, no I don't mean any of those actually. I mean if you have a range of text selected in a file and you only want to find/replace within that selection.
Gary C
@Doug - okay...now I understand...I'm not sure. The previous functionality you describe is not there. Don't know if it's a bug or just a feature that was removed / replaced. It seems to me that Command+Shift+E should work, but I can't get it to.