Structural Search and Replace (SSR) performs search and replace across the project, taking advantage of the IntelliJ IDEA's awareness of the Java syntax and code structure.
IntelliJ IDEA finds, and if required, replaces fragments of source code, using the search templates.
Structural Search and Replace is helpful when you need to browse through or modify an extensive code base, find changes in libraries, explore the source code for specific constructs, or refactor the source code.
Even though you can use the conventional find and replace features, especially in combination with the search options (whole word, or case sensitivity) and regular expressions, it can help only to a certain extent, because you are supposed to know the source code well enough. On the contrary, the SSR feature takes into consideration the syntax and semantics of the source code, and thus enables you to easily search through the source code using patterns.
Besides Java, Structural Search and Replace also works for XML and HTML.
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