TFS Queries: Searching in all files of the source control

For an intro on LinqPad and the TFS API please read this post
For the list of all the posts in this series please read this one

Context

Searching in all files of a solution inside Visual Studio is very useful. In TFS you can search for files of a collection but there is no built in functionality to search for text inside those files. Using the TFS API we can do this kind of thing.

Required references

Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client.dll
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Framework.Client.dll
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.VersionControl.Client.dll

Query (C# Program)

string[] textPatterns = new[] { "Main(string", "(this " };
string[] filePatterns = new[] { "*.cs", "*.xml", "*.config" };

void Main()
{
 var tfs = TfsTeamProjectCollectionFactory
  .GetTeamProjectCollection(new Uri("http://localhost:8088/tfs"));

 var versionControl = tfs.GetService<VersionControlServer>();
 
 var teamBranches = versionControl.QueryRootBranchObjects(RecursionType.Full)
  .Where (s => !s.Properties.RootItem.IsDeleted)
  .Select(s => s.Properties.RootItem.Item)
  .ToList()
  .Dump("Searching in the following branches");
 
 filePatterns.Dump("File patterns");
 textPatterns.Dump("Text patterns");

 foreach (var teamBranch in teamBranches)
  foreach (var filePattern in filePatterns)
   foreach (var item in versionControl.GetItems(teamBranch + "/" 
    + filePattern, RecursionType.Full).Items)
    SearchInFile(item);
}

// Define other methods and classes here
private void SearchInFile(Item file)
{
 var result = new List<string>();
 var stream = new StreamReader(file.DownloadFile(), Encoding.Default);
 
 var line = stream.ReadLine();
 var lineIndex = 0;
 
 while (!stream.EndOfStream)
 {
  if (textPatterns.Any(p => line.IndexOf(p, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) >= 0))
   result.Add("Line " + lineIndex + ": " + line.Trim());
 
  line = stream.ReadLine();
  lineIndex++;
 }
 
 if (result.Count > 0) result.Dump(file.ServerItem);
}

Result

You will get all the lines and line numbers matching the text search patterns for all files matching the file search patterns. This may take a lot of time (30 minutes on some occurrence so be careful!). You might want to add more restrictions, especially the the branches to query around line 12.