[RFC] How to handle selected records in exports

[doenietzomoeilijk]

In #7812 I managed to fix the breaking error that occurred during exports. However, as it stands, exports still won't always work for all cases.

If your setup has a contenttype with a select field that pulls content from another contenttype, those values will be stored by ID by default. It's optional to use a different field for storage. That means this content might break during export-import, since those IDs might not stay the same.

The ways around this, as I see them:

• Actually store the IDs in the export (and use them when importing, too

  Pro: makes the whole process more predictable and "safe"
  Con: Will bork things up when importing into a database when there's already content there.

• On export, do a special song and dance for select content where the linking field is ID, and use that for the export data

  Pro: retain the functionality of importing into an existing database
  Con: hell of a lot more work and it feels a bit kludg-y to me

• Just not support it and notify export users of this, giving them the hint to maybe use another field for the link if they are going to use export/import in the future

  Pro: least work of all the options, no changes to possibly already used workflows so no BC break for anyone
  Con: not user friendly

Personally I'm leaning towards the first option, but I'd like some input on the matter, or maybe some insight that I might've missed.

[bobdenotter]

If we do a "backup" or "full export" from an SQL database, it also includes the ID's. Importing that as-is in an existing DB will break as well, if there's already content in there.

In that light, I think the "Actually store the IDs in the export" option is perfectly valid.. My vote is for that one.

[doenietzomoeilijk]

Right, and there's the "overwrite my stuff" flag anyway. Allright, that confirms my thinking.

[stale]

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