Add an option to strip UUIDs from imported/exported config files

IMHO the actual solution is to point people to https://www.drupal.org/project/config_installer

There is a reason why this feature is not allowed. Feel free to read more on https://www.drupal.org/node/2133325

Well, I think making it super hard for people to break their site is not a bad thing.

There's kind of a similar thread over at github/drush https://github.com/drush-ops/drush/pull/1875

Well, IMHO the thing is that drush is for advanced users, for which we are fine to break stuff, as they maybe have good reasons for certain actions.

Our primary use case for this feature is for feature building.

The config/sync directory is never used to import, but it can be used to check if the result of a `site install` is about what we expect (and to copy wanted files or changes we wanted to keep, and missed, from a saved version).

The meaningless UUID changes in every file, however, make it impossible to find that information in all the noise.

Here is a workaround that presumes you are using Git for version control, exporting configuration and committing it, then running a site install, and re-exporting the configuration (but not yet committing it):

git diff -G '^[^u]*([^u][^i][^d][^:]).*'

will show only files with non-uuid changes. If there's a change to a uuid other than the one for the configuration as a whole (that is, indented under some other part of the configuration), that will be shown.

Super unsure about the regex in this but it's not had a false negative or positive yet.

Here's what i have in my .bashrc to make this easier to use:

# Diff that ignores config files whose only change is the UUID (ignores lines
# starting with 'uuid:' and probably other stuff but it's solid so far.)
alias gdu="git diff -G '^[^u]*([^u][^i][^d][^:]).*'"

Took me forever to come up with this workaround; hope it helps others.

And yes i would still like the option in drush!

And yes i would still like the option in drush!

I'd recommend creating an issue in the Drush queue then. Please link to it from here. (I just checked, and it doesn't exist.)

Did this get anywhere with with Drush?

All my Drupal 8 sites (30+) are clones of the same code base and I expect this is a common scenario for many not working in the enterprise space.

Aside from Drush, surely it is time for a more flexible approach to configuration management.

What is happening with this?

Here's another workaround, which edits the files in place. Note the differences with folks not using GNU sed. (This is the Linux version; see there for how to modify if you're using BSD, or still use Apple products for some reason.)

#!/bin/bash
FILES=$CONFIG_DIR/*
for f in $FILES
do
  echo "Processing $f file..."
  sed -i '/^uuid:/d' $f
  sed -i '/^\_core:/d' $f
  sed -i '/^  default_config_hash:/d' $f
done

I do not think core should have this feature. See the discussion of why UUIDs for config were added in the first place: #2133325: Create a site UUID on install and only allow config sync between sites with the same UUID

That said, of course people wanting this have a valid use case. All I am saying is that core shouldn't deal with this. Especially since it is very easy to create a contrib module which strips out uuids on export and re-sets them on import to the one that exist already (or random ones if they don't exist).

All one has to do is use the config transformation API added to Drupal 8.8
https://www.drupal.org/node/3066005

Config Split 2.x and Config Ignore 3.x are examples of modules that implement their functionality with this API.
I am also available on slack if someone wants help building such a module.

If you are maintaining a drupal profile and have a long and complex config/install folder, it sure would have been nice to have an option to export to that install folder without the uuids present. Having to strip those out is a huge pain.

Found this online:

```
sed -i.bak '/^uuid: /d' ./*
```