PyCharm 2021.2 Help

Part 1. Find by name, recent usages, and searching everywhere

This is one of the most powerful PyCharm's navigation and search features that enables you to find actually any file, class or symbol by its name, and jump directly to it. This is how it's done.

Navigate to file

Press Ctrl+Shift+N, and type ca in the popup that opens:

Search in files

Next, let's jump to a specific class. To achieve this goal, press Ctrl+N, and type, for example, ca. The suggestion list shows all classes with the letter ca somewhere inside their names. Note that each class is followed by its fully qualified path:

Search in classes

Select Cat in the suggestion list, and press Enter. This time, the file opens with the caret at the class declaration:

Selected class

Navigate to symbol

Next, let's jump to a certain member of a class. Press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+N, and type *oo (* is a mask for any amount of any characters.)

Search a symbol

From the suggestion list, select food from Carnivorae and press Enter. The file Carnivorae.py opens at the method declaration:

Selected file

Recent files

Most of the time, you switch between a handful of files you are actively working on. The other files are less necessary. PyCharm has the features making this workflow very convenient.

Suppose you are editing a function, and at the same time you’re writing a test for this function - it means that you are switching back and forth.

This is where navigating to recent files comes to help: press Ctrl+E. Note that the most recent file is listed first and selected by default - you just need to press Enter.

recent files

Speed search is available in the recent files popup. Just start typing what you are looking for, and you'll see the result that matches the search string:

recent files

Note that you can also jump to a tool window (for example, open a new terminal session).

What if you are interested in the recently edited (not just visited) files? Press Shift twice, then switch to Actions, and type: "Recent Changed Files". Note that speed search and navigation to the tool windows are also available.

Searching everywhere

PyCharm gives you the chance to find anything anywhere, and jump directly to the search result. Thus you can find the same classes, files and symbols, actions and settings. To do that, just double-press Shift, or click the magnifier glass icon in the right-hand corner of the PyCharm window, and here you are:

Search Everywhere

Jumping to a line

And finally, let's open a file for editing F4. Let it be Mammalia.py. Then, press Ctrl+G:

Go to line

You'll find yourself at the specified line, and the specified column:

Selected line

Summary

This brief tutorial is over. You've mastered the following features:

What's next?

Let's proceed with Part 2 and see how to jump to a declaration and implementation. Besides that, you see how to create a test, or navigate to an already created one.

Last modified: 22 December 2021