Changing Extension Attribute Type

rstasel
Valued Contributor

Anyone happen to know if you change an EA from String to Integer, does it nuke the existing values? 

Made the mistake of setting up an EA as a string but with numbers as the values a while back, and that loses the ability to do less than, greater than. So would like to change to integer, but would rather not nuke the existing values. 

Thanks! 

3 REPLIES 3

tlarkin
Honored Contributor

EAs are ran and collected at Recon, if you change the data type I would "assume" that it won't replace the value until next inventory. I cannot say for certain but this could be easy to test on one device 

rstasel
Valued Contributor

Sorry, you misunderstand. I'm talking about altering the EA itself under Settings, Computer Extension Attributes, clicking the EA, and changing the "Data Type" from String to Integer. And I'm wondering if that initializes the column since it's changing the data type, or does it just change it the DB and anything that's already an integer will remain. 

tlarkin
Honored Contributor

I think that just changes the data type and not the data itself, but again you could test this to find out I suppose