Migrate changes in API Name

Question

How do we migrate the changes in the API name of components. When I tried the usual deployment, it resulted in new components being created in my target org with the new api name while the ones with the old api were still still present. Suppose I wanted to change the api name of a field and migrate the change to another sandbox, could you please tell me how to do this? Thanks

Answer 1

API names are like the non-org-specific Identifier of a metadata element. Consider that you can also not update the primary key/id of a data record by another primary key/Id. That'd be an insert.

So if you must do this, you'll have to do it in 2 operations: remove old version + insert new version.

You can use Destructive Changes xml to remove first, and use your usual calls to insert again.

To my knowledge, not doing this always implies you'd have to manually remove and clean up.

Answer 2

Looks like every API name change creates a new entry in the Metadata instead of replacing the existing one. The best option would be to update the API names in the migrating sandbox first and then move the related components which refer the fields via changeset to avoid failures.