Change field settings for text field from plain to formatted while data exists

Question

anyone know of a quick example of how to change the field settings for a text area (plain) to formatted and set the input formatter (or maybe it will use default)? Will this require a resave of all the data or can it just be changed for the entity type? I currently have a lot of existing data on this site.

The field is currently stored as the type string, Text (plain). I need to change it to text_long, Text (formatted, long).

Thanks

Answer 1

Attention for Drupal 8:

You need to update at least 3 or 4 yml files

field.field.node.page.field_description.yml

(same change)

field.storage.node.field_description.yml

--- a/config/default/field.storage.node.field_description.yml
+++ b/config/default/field.storage.node.field_description.yml
@@ -4,13 +4,13 @@
 dependencies:
   module:
     - node
+    - text
 id: node.field_description
 field_name: field_description
 entity_type: node
-type: string_long
-settings:
-  case_sensitive: false
-module: core
+type: text_long
+settings: {  }
+module: text
 locked: false
 cardinality: 1
 translatable: true

core.entity_form_display.node.page.default.yml

-type: string_textarea 
+type: text_textarea

core.entity_view_display.node.page.default.yml

-type: basic_string
+type: text_default

Maybe the last 2 ones you can deal with those changes on UI(go to each teaser and save). But I did in config folder.

Answer 2

Oh wow, I just tried something in hopes of it being easy and it was a breeze!...

I already have all my config exported to code so I compared a text_long field to my current string_long field and just merged the differences, it worked beautifully. Something like the changes in the following example patch:

--- config/prod/field.field.node.page.field_description.yml (revision 3ef14eada9090087d33a10ec532732e515fef151)
+++ config/prod/field.field.node.page.field_description.yml (revision )
@@ -5,6 +5,8 @@
   config:
     - field.storage.node.field_description
     - node.type.page
+  module:
+    - text
 id: node.researcher.field_description
 field_name: field_description
 entity_type: node
@@ -16,4 +18,4 @@
 default_value: {  }
 default_value_callback: ''
 settings: {  }
-field_type: string_long
+field_type: text_long

imported the changed config and walah! Just beautiful.