Section 1.9. Insert Boilerplate CodeUsing Snippets

1.9. Insert Boilerplate CodeUsing Snippets

Some code is common and generic enough that programmers everywhere write it again and again each day. Even though developers have the help of online documentation, samples, and books like the one you're reading, useful code never seems to be at your fingertips when you need it. Visual Studio 2005 includes a new code snippet feature that allows you to insert commonly used code and quickly adapt it to suit your purposes. Early beta builds of Visual Studio 2005 included a tool for building your own snippets. Although this feature isn't in the latest releases, Microsoft has suggested that it might appear as a separate add-on tool at a later time.

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Note: Looking for the solution to an all-too-common nuisance? Visual Studio code snippets might already have the answer.

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1.9.1. How do I do that?

You can insert a code snippet anywhere in your code. Just move to the appropriate location, right-click the mouse on the current line, and select Insert Snippet. A pop-up menu will appear with a list of snippet categories, such as Math, Connectivity and Networking, and Working with XML. Once you select a category, a menu will appear with a list of snippets. Once you select a snippet, the code will be inserted.

For example, suppose you want to add the ability to send and receive email messages to your application. Just create a new event handler or a standalone method, and right-click inside it. Then, choose Insert Snippet, and select Connectivity and Networking Create an Email Message. Figure 1-12 shows the code that's inserted.

Figure 1-12. Customizing a code snippet

The shaded portions of code are literal values (like file paths and control references) that you need to customize to adapt the code to your needs. By pressing the Tab key, you can move from one shaded region to the next. Additionally, if you hover over a shaded region, a ToolTip will appear with a description of what content you need to insert.

1.9.2. What about...

...getting more snippets? The basic set of code snippets included with Visual Studio .NET is fairly modest. It includes some truly useful snippets (e.g., "Find a Node in XML Data") and some absurdly trivial ones (e.g., "Add a Comment to Your Code"). However, many useful topics, such as encryption, aren't dealt with at all.

1.9.3. Where can I learn more?

Thanks to the pluggable nature of snippets, you may soon be able to add more snippets to your collection from community web sites, coworkers, third-party software developers, and even sample code from a book like this.