Searching for column does not bring it when it belongs to a View

Here is test case with "standard" HR tables:

create or replace view myview as ( select employee_id emp_id_col_in_myview from employees);

create or replace view myview2 as ( select nvl(employee_id,'810') emp_id_col_in_myview2 from  employees);

select * from user_tab_columns where column_name = 'EMPLOYEE_ID';

As this test demonstrates there is no employee_id in either view. The columns that show are: emp_id_col_in_myview and emp_id_col_in_myview2. In your example, it shows in the first view because your view definition is equivalent to

create or replace view myview as ( select edi_ref_id edi_ref_id from arsedi);

If you have checked off all options for Find Database Object (specifically including All Source Lines), then probably you just need to make your search string a wild card, e.g., %edi_ref_id% or some subset of it (%ref_id%).

the source toggle only goes into ALL_SOURCE, which doesn't contain the SQL used to build VIEWs

Thanks, I mislead myself with a test case that seemed like the OP's but was not.  Then I assumed the result came from the All Source Lines filter when it really came from Columns, but serendipitously due to my use of wild cards.

Of course, the text is stored as a LONG data type in DBA_VIEWS / ALL_VIEWS, which pretty much keeps us from going there.  So it looks like wild card searching may help, but only in cases where the frequency of the search string is low so that the search results do not get flooded with lots of false positives.

Also, of course, in terms of the original question "Searching for column...", Vadim's answer is the correct explanation of the behavior.

Of course, the text is stored as a LONG data type in DBA_VIEWS / ALL_VIEWS, which pretty much keeps us from going there.

What do you mean by it keeps you 'from going there'?

The JDBC drive can fetch long data.

		Statement stmt = connection.createStatement();
		ResultSet rset = stmt.executeQuery("select view_name, text from user_views"); rset.next(); String view_text = rset.getObject("text"); System.out.println(view_text): . . . "select "DEPTNO","DNAME","LOC" from dept"

You would have to fetch the data using JDBC and then you can search those strings.

You would have to fetch the data using JDBC and then you can search those strings.

Certainly, but the SQL Developer team's modus operandi seems to involve letting the database do as much of the work as possible, preferably in SQL -- so searching through a result set on the Java client side of things is somewhat undesirable. 

I am under the impression, perhaps incorrectly, that doing stuff like INSTR on a LONG in SQL does not work.  I would bet that as soon as the database provides a SQL-friendly way to filter on the view text data, support for it in SQL Developer will soon follow.

The view source search is missing indeed; I filed a bug.

As a workaround, check all the dependencies of the object you are modifying. There would be false positives (views that are dependent on a table/view, perhaps via a different column).