stop table tool from losing xml

[patrick_digan]

As pointed out by @Joshman108 in this post, you can lose some/all of your work in the table tool if the metadata is ever not flowing correctly. Losing your metadata can happen for a number of legitimate reasons (copying/pasting, crosstab tool upstream, python tool upstream etc.) There are a number of tools (including the table tool) where losing the matadata can prove catastrophic. 

Consider these 2 simple examples:

1) We have the dynamic box checked and apply a rule to field 1:

If our table tool loses its metadata, our row rule is completely erased! I would expect the tool to remember our row rule once metadata is reestablished.

2) We have the dynamic box unchecked, as well as Field4 unchecked. We setup the same rule as before that references field4.

Now when the metadata is lost and restablished, the table tool does a good job of remembering that Field4 is supposed to be unselected, and that I had a rule for Field1; however, the rule has now been changed! I would expect the rule to also remember that I was referencing Field4. Note that if my rule had reference a field that was included in the table, it would have remembered the rule. It's only because my rule referenced Field4 which was not included in the table that my rule got messed up. In my rule, it now references Row# which is completely wrong:

Table Tool issue.yxmd

[Joshman108]

I am in full support of this. I have spent a full 5 workdays trying to understand this was an issue and scope out the extent of this issue in a workflow of ours. I have then had to 1) Extensively document how to fix the error once a workflow loses table configuration 2) Create a python script to fix the errors at scale

This shouldn't be necessary. 

[SeanAdams]

This would solve a lot of pain when you're working in the early stages of a data set and the data is changing shape.