Apple's Xcode Ladies and Gentlemen

I still don't understand why programmers are forced to use a specific tool, to write apps for a specific ecosystem.

i.e. writing a Flutter mobile app for Android and iOS. You can do everything in VSCode for the Android part incl. the apk-build.

But for iOS you're forced to use Xcode for implementing certain things like permissions, build and upload.

Nothing but headaches.

After a decade as a Java (and Kotlin) dev I recently got to work on an iOS app. The transition from Jetbrains products to Xcode has been painful, to say the least.

I tried appcode before it was retired, and it was a much better experience all around. I can't understand why Apple insists on maintaining this pile of crap instead of working with JB like Google.

I think you might be misunderstanding what this does.

You did a search for symbol references that contain "User" ignoring cases.

When you do a search for symbol references this way, Xcode will return two things:

1. A declaration of all the symbols containing "User" and/or some context surrounding the symbol (ignoring Case)
2. Show any places where your code references the symbol

And it did just that.

The first three .swift files show references to symbols that contain "User".
The forth one, User.swift, is in and of itself a symbol that matches the query and has symbols inside itself.
The last one UserViewModel.swift is in itself a symbol as well and all the parts that are nested within that you've annotated with underscores and question marks, serve to give you context about the symbol "UserViewModel", hence the ellipses.

It's essentially telling you "Hey I've found this symbol UserViewModel, it starts with a var named username, has a bunch of stuff following that (i.e. …) then has an extension, then some more stuff (i.e. …) and then ends".

Without knowing what's inside UserViewModel.swift I can't tell if it goofed with giving you a typical declaration, but that doesn't change the fact that its trying to give you context about a valid search result, the symbol UserViewModel, so that you can figure out if that's the one you're looking for.

Keep in mind that variables are considered symbols as well, but in this instance I don't think that's what happened here, otherwise it would've been marked with a P instead of a C.

If this is not desired behavior then I suggest you switch from "Containing" to "Matching Word" or instead consider using the search bar at the bottom of the Symbol Navigator. Another option, if you're searching while going through code, is to right click on the symbol in your code and click Find > Find Selected Symbol in Workspace.

Lastly it might be an idea to go over the Xcode documentation as a refresher. This would be a good starting point.

That said, Apple clearly feels that things can be improved by clarifying, because in the current Xcode beta they've changed the option label from References to Symbols (and added a few more options).

I see the blank lines being included is odd, is that it? Why are the other lines being underlined?

Save for the "..." blank lines I see no problem with this. You just ran a Ctrl (command?) + F on everything that contains "User" ignoring case and it did exactly that.

Xcode seems to get worse with each release.

The really basic things that it's missing are frustrating too, like bookmarks. This has been a feature of every other IDE I've used since '98 when I started programing in VB6.

A few versions ago they removed the ability to tear a tab out of the IDE to have it open separately.

I was actually looking to add Swift to my list of languages but if Xcode is this shitty, it’s kind of a deterrent.