how to change a field type without deleting and creating a field [#1857026]

I want to change a field type from term reference to entity reference
how to do that without disturbing the features default
if i delete a field and recreate, any updates to features would again change it

Comments

Comment #1

mh86 CreditAttribution: mh86 commented 5 December 2012 at 09:16

Status:

Active

» Fixed

If it's a different field, then it's best to use a different machine name for the new one. Otherwise wired things might happen.
As a next step, export the newly created field into a custom module of your website and unset the old field in hook_field_default_fields_alter(). Then all features should stay in the 'default' state.

Comment #2

kaizerking CreditAttribution: kaizerking commented 5 December 2012 at 12:03

could you pl post example snippet, i could not find any
i wanted to alter the organization(company name) field type to entity reference and use "entity connect" module to create organization node and maintain a single organization data for applicants and recruiters
my apologies if this request is out of context

Comment #3

mh86 CreditAttribution: mh86 commented 6 December 2012 at 15:42

One possibility is to remove the organization fields from the job content types and then add following code to a custom module:

/**
 * Implements hook_field_default_fields_alter().
 */
function custom_field_default_fields_alter(&$fields) {
  // Remove the organization field from the job content types.
  $organization_fields = array(
    'node-job_per_file-field_job_organization',
    'node-job_per_template-field_job_organization',
    'node-job_per_link-field_job_organization',
  );
  foreach ($organization_fields as $field) {
    if (isset($fields[$field])) {
      unset($fields[$field]);
    }
  }
}

(Note: I did not test this code)

One disadvantage of this approach: This field might be used somewhere else as well, e.g. in the job search and deleting it might lead to some problems or require a few more overrides.

An alternative to this is to use field permissions and hide the field from 'normal' users.

And one more thing: instead of coding you might give Features Override a chance. I haven't tried it for a while.