Search and replace in Visual Studio

Question

In Visual Studio, when I search within a selection, I want to replace the first instance (or second, third, etc.) of a match per line using regular expressions. How would I

Answer 1

In Visual Studio 2010 and earlier, use regular expressions with back references

Visual Studio's regular expressions are completely different from what I've learned. Took me some time to figure out the correct answer.

Search for

{foo}{:d+} = \1\2

Replace with

\1\2 = bar\2

Back references are done by tagging with curly braces {foo}. :d+ is the same for \d+

Read more about VS RegEx here