BlueFrog noted that “The location of the file in the database structure is not static so linking to internal files are likely to have broken links.”
Is that still true with DT3? I’m not 100% sure how I’d construct the test case to test it (is it just a database rebuild? Do I have to do something before I do that?), and I’ve found the only thing worse than not testing is testing incorrectly and being supremely confident in an improperly-obtained result.
And if that’s not true, can I be confident that the UUID for any given item will be consistent on a permanent basis? Or does DT change all of that stuff “on the fly”? I.e. if I toss
@webwalrus, while the item is in DT, and you didn’t mess with the internal structure of DT, you may be sure that UUID is the most constant thing about this item you’ll ever see anywhere else outside DT.
You may do with this item everything you want: change its content, name (including file name!), all metadata including location, replicate, duplicate - whatever else you want - UUID will still be telling you that this is the same item, while other apps may hardly recognize it is.
UUIDs are permanent unless you export and reimport files.
Not sure if I should be replying to this thread or creating a new one, but does that mean moving an item from one database to another will lose its old item link? We also cannot rebuild the database, then?
Sorry, but that is not very clear to me. Surely it is the items that are imported or indexed, not the databases. Are you saying that if an item is indexed by a database, and it is then imported into the same database, the UUID changes? Or do you mean something else?
Yes, can you clarify what you mean here?
Moving an indexed item into a database, and even moving it back out to the indexed folder, should not change the UUID.
Yes, as long as there’s only one copy at any point – but if the move creates a second copy, that will obviously have a different UUID. But thinking about it, this is a very specific situation that arises from my own convoluted workflow of using a separate imported database to synchronise documents from indexed folders between devices. As you were!
