Regd deployment

Question

We've to change data type of a pick list field to multi select.

But this field is already being used in multiple classes. I'm just curious about the impact during production deployment as changing data type can't be done without commenting out code, where field is referenced?

Could we just change the data type and use the field in our change set and Salesforce deployment engine will automatically handle everything ?

or

We've to following these steps

1 'comment out' the code(Classes etc) where field is referenced(in Sanbox)

2 Deploy Code in production ,

3 change the data type in production

4.Deploy the same code(cloned change set of earlier one) again after 'uncommenting' code ?

Answer 1

When changing a picklist from single- to multi-select, you don't need to go through all of the steps you listed.

You should look through your code though, and make sure that the logic will still make sense with the possibility of multiple values for that field. Especially look for situations where you check if the picklist is equal to a value rather than seeing if it contains a value.