ReSharper 2018.3 Help

Automatic Completion

ReSharper's automatic completion suggests names of classes, methods, variables, keywords, and any other symbols that are available within the current visibility scope including extension methods that were previously imported. Many other context-specific suggestions, like live templates, code generation suggestions, unit test categories are also available in the completion list.
By default, suggestions of automatic completion also include items from Smart Completion and Import Symbol Completion. If you want to change the default behavior, use the corresponding controls on the Environment | IntelliSense | Completion Behavior page of ReSharper options. The list of suggestions is the same as that of Basic Completion.

The suggestion list of the automatic completion appears as soon as you start typing. As you type, the list narrows down to show only items that match what you have entered.

By default, automatic completion support CamelHumps, i.e. you can type the initial letters of a compound name parts and the name will appear in the list of suggestions.
If necessary, you can disable CamelHumps by clearing the Match middle of identifiers check box on the Environment | IntelliSense | Completion Behavior page of ReSharper options.

When building the list of completion suggestions, ReSharper also tries to figure out which suggestion you will likely choose, and preselects it in the list. With the default settings, ReSharper pre-selects the best match allowing you to insert it you press Enter, Space, as well as dot, open parenthesis, open bracket, semicolon, etc. (depending on the context) You change this default behavior as described below in this topic. You can also specify the characters on which the selected suggestion is not inserted. To do so, use the corresponding controls on the Environment | IntelliSense | Completion Characters page of ReSharper options.

Configuring automatic completion

Automatic completion suggestions only appear if either ReSharper or Custom IntelliSense and the corresponding language is selected on the Environment | IntelliSense | General page of ReSharper options.

Automatic completion suggestions only appear if Enable Automatic IntelliSense Popup is checked on the the Environment | IntelliSense | Autopopup page of ReSharper options.

On the Environment | IntelliSense | Autopopup page of ReSharper options, you can also tune the behavior of automatic completion for each language and context separately.

For each language and context combination, you can specify one of three kinds of behaviour:

  • Do not display

  • Display and preselect
    When the suggestion list appears, ReSharper tries to guess what are you about to type and selects it for you in the list. If the proposed item is correct, just hit Enter Space, as well as dot, open parenthesis, open bracket, semicolon, etc. (depending on the context) to go on with the suggested item. (See ReSharper Options | Environment | IntelliSense | Completion Characters to learn how to configure the insertion of the selected completion item.)

  • Display but do not preselect
    This option just allows the pop-up to show the list of available items without selection so that you could choose one manually. When you hit Enter, Space, etc. the popup disappears and you can continue with what you've typed. However, the best match in the pop-up is still highlighted with a blue frame, and if you see that the guess is correct, you can hit Ctrl+Enter to insert it.

For example, you can define the behavior after typing a dot in C# files.

Tuning the behavior of ReSharper's automatic completion

The examples below display the visual effect of each setting.

ReSharper: Hard/soft selection in the auto-completion popup

To enable "hard" selection in auto-completion lists, select the Insert selected suggestion by pressing enter, dot, or other context-dependent keys option.

Examples of automatic completion

You can use the following examples to get an idea of how automatic completion works with various code items:

Suggesting type-based variable names

Commonly used names for fields and variables are suggested depending on their type. If you enter a variable name prefix, ReSharper will append it to each suggested name:

Coding Assistance Code Completion Symbol 02
You can specify a prefix and/or a suffix for all new variable names on the Code Editing | C# | Naming Style page of ReSharper options. If you do that, completion items will be modified accordingly:
Coding Assistance Code Completion Symbol 06

Suggesting members of a class

Coding Assistance Code Completion Symbol 03

Suggesting visible types

Coding Assistance Code Completion Symbol 04

Suggesting C# keywords

Coding Assistance Code Completion Symbol 05

Suggesting 'this' keyword for static methods in static classes

Coding Assistance Code Completion Symbol this

Completion for enum members

Coding Assistance Code Completion Symbol enum members 01
Coding Assistance Code Completion Symbol enum members 02

Using CamelHumps in code completion

Coding Assistance Code Completion Symbol 07

Completion for unresolved symbols

Early used names of data types and their members are suggested, even if they are not declared anywhere in the code and cannot be resolved.

Coding Assistance Code Completion Symbol unresolved

Completion for argument names

Coding Assistance Code Completion Argument names

Suggesting members of a dynamic type

Coding Assistance Code Completion Dynamic members

Suggesting existing partial classes

When you type partial class, names of partial classes in the current scope are added to the suggestions list, thus helping you to quickly create new parts of existing partial classes.

Suggestions for existing partial classes in ReSharper code completion

Applicability in different languages

This feature is supported in the following languages and technologies:

Language: C#

Language: VB.NET

Language: C++

Language: HTML

Language: ASP.NET

Language: Razor

Language: JavaScript

Language: TypeScript

Language: CSS

Language: XML

Language: XAML

Language: Resx

Language: Build Scripts

Language: Protobuf

Language: JSON

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The instructions and examples given here address the use of the feature in C#. For details specific to other languages, see corresponding topics in the ReSharper by Language section.

Last modified: 25 April 2019