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Visual Studio Commands

Visual Studio commands allow you to invoke a command from the Command window, Immediate window, or Find/Command box. In each case, the greater than sign (>) is used to indicate that a command rather than a search or debug operation is to follow.

You can find a complete list of commands and their syntax in the Keyboard, Environment Options dialog box.

The escape character for Visual Studio commands is a caret (^) character, which means that the character immediately following it is interpreted literally, rather than as a control character. This can be used to embed straight quotation marks ("), spaces, leading slashes, carets, or any other literal characters in a parameter or switch value, with the exception of switch names. For example,

>Edit.Find ^^t /regex

A caret functions the same whether it is inside or outside quotation marks. If a caret is the last character on the line, it is ignored.

In localized versions of the IDE, command names can be entered either in the native language of the IDE or in English. For example, you can type either File.NewFile or Fichier.NouveauFichier in the French IDE to execute the same command.

Many commands have aliases. For a list of command aliases, see Visual Studio Command Aliases.

The following commands take arguments and/or switches.

Command Name

Description

Add Existing Item

Adds an existing file to the current solution and opens it.

Add Existing Project

Adds an existing project to the current solution.

Add New Item

Adds a new solution item, such as an .htm, .css, .txt, or frameset to the current solution and opens it.

Alias

Creates a new alias for a complete command, complete command and arguments, or even another alias.

Evaluate Statement

Evaluates and displays the given statement.

Find

Searches files using a subset of the options available on the Find and Replace control.

Find in Files

Searches files using a subset of the options available on the Find in Files.

Go To

Moves the cursor to the specified line.

List Call Stack

Displays the current call stack.

List Disassembly

Begins the debug process and allows you to specify how errors are handled.

List Memory

Displays the contents of the specified range of memory.

List Modules

Lists the modules for the current process.

List Registers

Displays a list of registers.

List Source

Displays the specified lines of source code.

List Threads

Displays a list of the threads in the current program.

Log Command Window Output

Copies all input and output from the Command window into a file.

New File

Creates a new file and adds it to the currently selected project.

Open File

Opens an existing file and allows you to specify an editor.

Open Project

Opens an existing project and allows you to add the project to the current solution.

Open Solution

Opens an existing solution.

Print

Evaluates the expression and displays the results or the specified text.

Quick Watch Command

Displays the selected or specified text in the Expression field of the Quick Watch dialog box.

Replace

Replaces text in files using a subset of the options available on the Find and Replace control.

Replace in Files

Replaces text in files using a subset of the options available in the Replace in Files.

Set Current Stack Frame

Allows you to view a particular stack frame.

Set Current Thread

Allows you to view a particular thread.

Set Radix

Determines the number of bytes to view.

Shell

Launches programs from within Visual Studio as though the command has been executed from the command prompt.

ShowWebBrowser Command

Displays the URL you specify in a Web browser window either within the integrated development environment (IDE) or external to the IDE.

Start

Begins the debug process and allows you to specify how errors are handled.

Path

Sets the list of directories for the debugger to search for symbols.

Toggle Breakpoint

Turns the breakpoint either on or off, depending on its current state, at the current location in the file.

Watch Command

Creates and opens a specified instance of a Watch window.

See Also

Reference

Command Window

Find/Command Box

Visual Studio Command Aliases