drupal move specific field to another field

Question

I basically have a content type named "articles", and in this content type there is a reference field (that let me put unlimited data) called authorsref and a text field which as well let's me add as many as I want.

Both of this fields are called "authors".

What I want to do is move a specific reference field, to the text field, and then delete that reference field.

So for example, there are a hundred articles already, there are actually thousands and let's say 40 of them have a reference field with the author test1 amongst other reference fields and let's say as well that 60 of those hundred articles have as well a reference field of test2.

what I need to do is to somehow go over all the articles and where test1 and test2 reference fields are present, move them from the reference field authorsref to the text field authors.

I am as well a newbie and I have been trying to get this to work for the last three days and I just don't know how.

Please help, and thanks so much!

Answer 1

I think you need to use hook_update_n + batch.

hook_update_n - With this hook you can update some values in your DB.

Batch - you need to use batch for operations that may take a long time. (You don't want to time out PHP, you wont worry about it with batch).

Some examples here and here.