Xcode C++ and Objective-C refactoring

Is there a way to refactor mixed C++/Objective-C code in Xcode ?? I am writing a game using Cocos2D and Box2D, and the Box2D is written on C++, so every class I write should have .mm extension and therefore when I try to e.g. rename the variable, I got a message like "Xcode can only refactor C and Objective-C code".

答案

Xcode is VERY limited with refactoring, even with plain Obj-C. It's basically renaming and it can't even rename in comments. If it says it can't do something, then it probably can't.

The only way to rename is using find & replace. Note that Xcode can handle regular expressions so it is often good enough.

Of course, the problem is that find & replace doesn't know the programming language and sometimes can add some extra replace or forget to replace something, therefore be extra careful. Clean build is neccessary after every refactoring to check everything got renamed correctly.

You can also use command line tools (e.g. sed) to achieve the same.

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edited Apr 5 '13 at 20:14 NSGod 19.1k13751

answered Apr 5 '13 at 17:19 Sulthan 66.2k14102140

Thank you! I just wanted to know the way people usually cope with it when working on big projects. Do they use find & replace tool too? – Terko Apr 5 '13 at 18:07

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@Terko Hard to say. I guess everybody is a bit different. Also note that XCode is not the only IDE on the market. It's the default and it's free but it's not the only one. I heard very good references for JetBrains, which has "Reliable refactorings" as one of its major features. I don't know whether it can refactor Obj-C++ or not but it's probably much better IDE than XCode. – Sulthan Apr 5 '13 at 19:35

@Sulthan - in many respects it is vastly superior , in others not (see Stefen's remark above). I now use xCode strictly for (rare) project setup activities, (always) organizer activities, and (never) code, test and integration. If they can resolve the performance issues and add the missing functions, xCode will soon be ExCode for me. – YvesLeBorg Apr 6 '13 at 12:17 

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@Sulthan - mind that Refactoring isn't simply renaming things.. Most of the time I use refactoring features of modern IDEs to extract methods, change signatures or move stuff between classes/namespaces. – Jay Jun 28 '13 at 18:47

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1.5 years on AppCode got pretty stable (Still the occasional refactoring bug) so that's what we use now for refactoring.. – cacau Jan 19 '15 at 7:17