Searching with the Locator

The locator provides one of the easiest ways in Qt Creator to browse through projects, files, classes, methods, documentation and file systems. You can find the locator in the bottom left of the Qt Creator window.

To activate the locator, press Ctrl+K (Cmd+K on Mac OS X) or select Tools > Locate.

To edit the currently open project's main.cpp file using the locator:

1. Activate the locator by pressing Ctrl+K.
2. Enter main.cpp.

   

3. Press Return.

   The main.cpp file opens in the editor.

It is also possible to enter only a part of a search string. As you type, the locator shows the occurrences of that string regardless of where in the name of an component it appears.

To narrow down the search results, you can use the following wildcard characters:

• To match any number of any or no characters, enter *.
• To match a single instance of any character, enter ?.

Using the Locator Filters

The locator allows you to browse not only files, but any items defined by locator filters. By default, the locator contains filters for:

• Locating any open document
• Locating files anywhere on your file system
• Locating files belonging to your project, such as source, header resource, and .ui files
• Locating class and method definitions in your project or anywhere referenced from your project
• Locating class and method definitions in the current document
• Locating a specific line in the document displayed in your editor
• Opening help topics, including Qt documentation
• Performing web searches
• Running text editing macros that you record and save. For more information, see Using Text Editing Macros

To use a specific locator filter, type the assigned prefix followed by Space. The prefix is usually a single character.

For example, to locate symbols matching QDataStream:

1. Activate the locator.
2. Enter : QDataStream (: (colon) followed by a Space and the symbol name (QDataStream)).

   The locator lists the results.

   

By default, the following filters are enabled and you do not need to use their prefixes explicitly:

• Going to a line in the current file (l).
• Going to an open file (o).
• Going to a file in any open project (a).

Using the Default Locator Filters

The following locator filters are available by default:

Function	Enter in locator	Example
Go to a line in the current file.	l Line number
Go to a symbol definition.	: Symbol name
Go to a symbol definition in the current file.	. Symbol name
Go to a help topic.	? Help topic
Search for a term by using a web search engine.	r Search term
Go to an open file.	o File name
Go to a file in the file system (browse the file system).	f File name
Go to a file in any project currently open.	a File name
Go to a file in the current project.	p File name
Go to a class definition.	c Class name
Go to a method definition.	m Method name
Execute a text editing macro.	rm Macro name

Creating Locator Filters

To quickly access files not directly mentioned in your project, you can create your own locator filters. That way you can locate files in a directory structure you have defined.

To create a locator filter:

1. In the locator, click and select Configure to open the Locator options.

   

2. Click Add.
3. In the Filter Configuration dialog:
   • Name your filter.
   • Select at least one directory. The locator searches directories recursively.
   • Define the file pattern as a comma separated list. For example, to search all .h and .cpp files, enter *.h,*.cpp
   • Specify the prefix string.

     To show only results matching this filter, select Limit to prefix.

     

4. Click OK.

Adding Web Search Engines

You can use the Web Search (r) locator filter to perform web searches. URLs and search commands for Bing, Google, Yahoo! Search, cplusplus.com, and Wikipedia are configured by default.

To find out the format of the search command to use for your favorite web search engine, perform a search in your browser and copy the resulting URL to the locator filter configuration. Replace the search term with the variable %1.

To add URLs and search commands to the list:

1. Select Tools > Options > Environment > Locator > Web Search (prefix: r) > Edit.
2. Select Add to add a new entry to the list.

   

3. Double-click the new entry to specify a URL and a search command. For example, http://www.google.com/search?q=%1.
4. Click OK.

Configuring the Locator Cache

The locator searches the files matching your file pattern in the directories you have selected and caches that information. The cache for all default filters is updated as you write your code. By default, Qt Creator updates the filters created by you once an hour.

To update the cached information manually, click and select Refresh.

To set a new cache update time:

1. Select Tools > Options > Environment > Locator.
2. In Refresh interval, define new time in minutes.