Vscode-cpptools: Allow "fuzzy" substring symbol search, similar to Go To File (CTRL+P) and Completion

[sherryyshi]

Is it possible to support substring searching in Symbol Search, just like the way the search in Go to File (CTRL+P) works today?

[sean-mcmanus]

We already support substring search. Can you provide repro details where this is not working?

[sherryyshi]

For Go To File, you can type something like foobar and it would be able to find foo_baz_bar.cpp. However for Go To Symbol, that's not possible. Some of our users noted that the experience is inconsistent. They are big fans of the Go To File substring search, and would love to have the same feature for symbol search

[bobbrow]

@sean-mcmanus, @sherryyshi is asking for "fuzzy" search (as we refer to it) like we have for completion, etc.

[StanBright]

Coming from Sublime, that would be a killer feature for me too.

[sidhuhere]

This is a killer feature and I miss this very much coming to VS Code from Source Insight.

[sean-mcmanus]

I don't think VS implements this either. I actually implemented this 8 months ago in response to https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/issues/3416 (well, that was for completion instead of symbol search, but the code chang would be similar) , but after consulting the VS team I discovered that the addition of "*" wild cards to add the fuzziness was expected to have a major performance hit (for large databases), so I abandoned the change. However, I believe the PR change could be revived if we added an opt-in setting, which would allow users who really want the feature to get it (assuming they're okay with the performance...or maybe a separate "fuzzy go to symbol" command instead of a setting).

[ppggff]

Any update about this feature?

[sean-mcmanus]

@ppggff No updates. It's not on our schedule to get implemented (more upvotes needed).

[github-actions[bot]]

This feature request has received enough votes to be added to our backlog.