Find/Replace in Xcode using Regular Expression

NOTE: The behavior changed in Xcode 6. The \123 syntax was replaced with $123. Also be warned that newlines can now be matched in reg exps so be sure to skim before Replace-Alling

Adding an additional argument to a method:

To replace

[* setFoo:*]

with

[* setFoo:* bar:value]

you do

(setFoo:)(.*)(\])
$1$2 bar:value]

(search string and replacement string respectively).

or, if on Xcode 5 or older

(setFoo:)(.*)(\])
\1\2 bar:value]

(below uses new syntax; swap if on Xcode 5 or older)

NOTE: Everything written here applies to the string-replacement methods in NSString/NSMutableString when using NSRegularExpressionSearch!

In other words, this line:

[input replaceOccurrencesOfString:@"\n\\[([^\\]^\n]*)\\]\n" 
                       withString:@"\n///\n\n[$1]\n" 
                          options:NSRegularExpressionSearch
                            range:(NSRange){0,input.length}];

will convert all "[...]\n" sequences (leaving e.g. "[...\n..." alone!) into "\n///\n\n[...]\n", preserving ... using $1.

Always did this by hand but in this case, I was adding an OPTIONAL ‘animate:’ flag, and the default up to this point had been YES, but I wanted NO, so every call had to be updated.

More examples:

Deprecated methods (iOS)

dismissModalViewControllerAnimated:... deprecation

To fix the deprecated dismissModalViewController replacing it with an empty completion block and retaining animated value:

(dismissModalViewControllerAnimated:)(.*)(\])
dismissViewControllerAnimated:$2 completion:nil]

---

presentModalViewController:animated: deprecation

(presentModalViewController:)(.*)( animated:)(.*)(\])
presentViewController:$2$3$4 completion:nil]

Miscellaneous

PD…Release → PD…Destroy

I recently wrote a c library with a bunch of files with the prefix PD and I used Create/Release as malloc/free keywords, which I regretted as it may make people think retain counting is kept, so I wanted to renamePD<anything>Release( with PD<anything>Destroy(.

([\n\r ])(PD)(.*)Release\(
$1$2$3Destroy(

Since Core Graphics has CGPDFDocumentRelease and similar, I had to ensure the word started with PD as well.

---

PDAssert(PDScannerPop...(...));

I had stupidly put assertions around functional code that would become empty when !#ifdef DEBUG. Luckily I knew that all of these started with PDAssert(PDScannerPop…. and ended with );.

(PDAssert\()(PDScannerPop)(.*)(\);)
$2$3;

No $1 here because that would include the PDAssert( again. Note that I’ve split right after the PDAssert( and am leaving out the ) in ); in the 3rd chunk which removes the surplus parens from removing PDAssert(.

Dealing with end parentheses

You can match everything except “)” to deal with over-greedy regexp replaces. Example:

foo(replace(arg), bar)
foo(newvalue(newarg), bar)

Using replace\((.*)\) will grab replace(arg), bar) and result will be foo(newvalue(newarg)! Instead use replace\(([^\)]*)\) which will grab replace(arg) and leave , bar) alone.

Converting a bunch of NSString properties from using retain and/or strong (and whatever else) to using copy

@property \(([^\)]*)[sr][te][rt][oa][ni][gn]([^\)]*)\)(.*)NSString(.*)
@property ($1copy$2)$3NSString$4

The weird sr te rt thing in the center matches both “strong” and “retain”.