Exclude comments when searching in Visual Studio

Question

Is there a way to perform searches (Find / Find in Files) in visual studio that will exclude matches in comments? While sometimes it is useful, other times it is the opposi

Answer 1

Here's the regex that works for me for newer versions of Visual Studio:

^(?![ \t]*//).*your_search_term

Note that the syntax changed as of VS 2012:

Visual Studio 2012 uses .NET Framework regular expressions to find and replace text. In Visual Studio 2010 and earlier versions, Visual Studio used custom regular expression syntax in the Find and Replace windows.

Reference: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/2k3te2cs(v=vs.110).aspx