Distinguish between deprecated and current data types

[mwiegand]

Hi,

the fact that legacy / deprecated data types are still present can create annoying scenarios resulting in unexplained execution failures such as:

[Bug] Date and Time to String fails

Hi, while working on an approach to efficiently and quickly, regardless of the size of a data set, inject column types, I converted sample data to strings. While doing so I happen to notice the Date&Time to String – KNIME Hub Node seems to struggle to convert the Column Type “Date and Time” to a string as the column is not recognized as a valid input type. [Bildschirmfoto 2022-09-12 um 19.05.29] [Bildschirmfoto 2022-09-12 um 18.16.31] [Bildschirmfoto 2022-09-12 um 18.55.20] In addition…

I’d like to propose, in case deprecated data types are present, to:

1. Add console warnings upon loading a workflow listing the corresponding column names
2. Add console and maybe even interface warnings upon node configuration
3. Mark / highlight columns with deprecated data types in the preview
4. Add an option to distinguish between current and legacy data types in column filter / splitter nodes

About #4, if there would be a dedicated type filter for deprecated data types by default, it might break workflows. Therefore an option voluntarily to en-/disable the differentiation, which results in another filter of the same data type but with the suffix “(deprecated)” to appear, would:

1. Help identifying & updating deprecated data
2. Possibly make workflow execution more robust

Best
Mike