Change one item in countless tools

Experts -

Let's say I have a workflow with lots and lots of tools, and many of those tools reference a field named "product". This referencing can be in formulas, multi row formulas, select tools and so on. Now our source data has changed for some reason and "product" has been renamed to "product_2". Is there a way to quickly change every "product" reference to "product_2" without manually checking every tool, or running the workflow and seeing which tools error out?

Can this be done via editing the .yxmd html or something?

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Accepted answers

CharlieS

Use a Select tool at the beginning to rename the new "product_2" field to the original "product" name the rest of the workflow is expecting. If this is an Analytic App, On the File Browse interface tool, select the "Generate Field Map for Input Data Tool" option so the user is forced to assign the field names of their new file to the field names the workflow is expecting.

It is possible to Find and Replace the "product" to "product_2" in the workflow XML in a text editor, but it's often very risky in case that string is used in other ways.

seven

@cking6178That solution requires a bit of mental mapping. When the user is going through the workflow, perhaps tool by tool and looking at formulas etc., the user must remember that Product_2 is actually Product. It's a memory challenge and difficult to maintain. The better solution is to keep a consistent name throughout.

All comments

CharlieS

It is possible to Find and Replace the "product" to "product_2" in the workflow XML in a text editor, but it's often very risky in case that string is used in other ways.

Bonediggler

Sorry I should have mentioned part of the requirement is to put the new field name in all the related tools for development purposes, which rules out the select tool switcharoo method (although that would make things much easier!).

In this case is doing a find/replace via text editor the only option besides manually updating each tool?

Thanks again!

alex

Just used the text editor method to update 99 formula tools for both the formula inside it and the string length! Just saved someone hours worth of work.

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