CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

Hi,

A previous developer set the "passport number" custom field to an integer.  I would like to switch it to a Alphanumeric Text.  I dont know how to change the type of the field,because it's not let me to change it from costum data. Can anyone help me?

Thanks

From CiviCRM v3.4.3, we do allow to change html type  (not data type ) of some custom fields, related issue is here
http://issues.civicrm.org/jira/browse/CRM-8176

But I think u need to change data type of the custom field
You will need to do this manually
(Please take db backup before go further bellow)

#1: Find field name ( 'name' ) of your custom field in table 'civicrm_custom_field'
       Lets say  name = 'my_integer_field'
       Fire following query:
            UPDATE civicrm_custom_field SET data_type = 'String' WHERE name = 'my_integer_field'
      #2: Find table name used to store your targeted custom field values, You will get this table name ( 'table_name' ) in table 'civicrm_custom_group'
      Say ur custom value table name is 'civicrm_value_my_custom_groupname'
      Find targeted column in table 'civicrm_value_my_custom_groupname', say targeted column name is 'my_integer_field_10'
      Fire following query:
           ALTER TABLE  civicrm_value_my_custom_groupname CHANGE  my_integer_field_10 my_integer_field_10 varchar(255);
     #3: Fire following query to clear contact field related cached data
         DELETE FROM civicrm_cache WHERE group_name = 'contact fields'
   # logout, login and check

Rajan