Search for instances of Primary Constructor usage

Summary

Locating references to Primary constructors can be challenging for types that are commonly referenced.

Background and Motivation

C# 12 includes a new feature called Primary constructors. For example:

public readonly struct Distance(double dx, double dy)
{
    public readonly double Magnitude { get; } = Math.Sqrt(dx * dx + dy * dy);
    public readonly double Direction { get; } = Math.Atan2(dy, dx);
}

This would previously have been written something like this:

public readonly struct Distance
{
    private readonly double dx;
    private readonly double dy;

    public readonly double Magnitude { get; }
    public readonly double Direction { get; }

    public Distance(double dx, double dy)
    {
        this.dx = dx;
        this.dy = dy;

        this.Magnitude = Math.Sqrt(dx * dx + dy * dy);
        this.Direction = Math.Atan2(dy, dx);
    }
}

In Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code, you can use the "Find References" feature to find references to a particular item.

Using the example without Primary constructors, I can use "Find References" to find the references to the constructor:

VS Code 1.83.1 w/C# DevKit 1.0.4:

Visual Studio 17.8 Preview 4.0:

With the use of Primary constructors, you can no longer get a list that only contains references to the constructor. You instead get a list of type references. These type references include constructor references, but that list can't be filtered to only include the constructor references.

VS Code 1.83.1 w/C# DevKit 1.0.4:

Visual Studio 17.8 Preview 4.0:

In this example, it isn't too bad to sort through and find the constructor references, but for a type that is commonly used in a codebase, the list of references can become quite noisy making this task more difficult.

I find the constructor references helpful to determine if an instance of a constructor is used at all and to evaluate the impact of a change to that constructor.

Proposed Feature

This is mostly intended as feedback, but here are a few ideas:

• For types with Primary constructors, ask the user if they want to find references to the type or the constructor.

• For reference links in the editor on types with Primary constructors, perhaps you could instead show something like the following:

  3 references | 1 constructor reference
  public readonly struct Distance(double dx, double dy)
  {
      public readonly double Magnitude { get; } = Math.Sqrt(dx * dx + dy * dy);
      public readonly double Direction { get; } = Math.Atan2(dy, dx);
  }
  

• Add UI to enable filtering the references list when querying type references.

Alternative Designs

None