Export/Edit/Import a flow containing a subflow, I am ending up with multiple copies of subflow with auto renamed

[smanjunath211]

I had a small flow with subflow in it, I copied and pasted multiple bits and ended up having a huge duplicates of subflow, what is the correct way ?

i followed this discussion which seems to be similar , but i could not understnad much.

Why does importing a clipboard with a subflow create a "new" identical but renamed subflow

Edit: Now that I know the behavior I observe is inherent to Node-RED, I reposted this over on the feature requests: Import a flow containing a subflow without unintentionally creating a duplicate subflow I need to copy/paste a flow that contains a subflow. However, when I do this, nodered creates an identical subflow but appends (2) or (3) or (4), etc. to the end of the subflow name. So far I determined a very basic test subflow does not behave like this, but once I include an mqtt node, I …

[Trying_to_learn]

@smanjunath211

i followed this discussion which seems to be similar , but i could not understnad much.

Which one?

[smanjunath211]

OOps, forgot to paste. edited the main post.

[Colin]

@smanjunath211

I copied and pasted multiple bits

Do you mean copy/paste or Export/Import?

[smanjunath211]

Sorry, my post was not complete. apologies.

It is indeed export and import back, BUT with editing in notepad.
so i have 25 machines for which i made a small flow whcih included a subflow, i needed 24 copies of these each for an hour on clock. (complex story, which can be simplified, subject for another topic), i assumed exporting one block and changing the values in the change node to replace 00 with 01, etc for 24 times, made a quick alternate for copy paste since i need to change each change node for 25 machines for every hour.
it did work, as i expected (well) except for the duplicate copies of the subflow. and i cannot delete them because they are referred to in some of the flows.

repeat this 24 times one for each hour.

[Trying_to_learn]

If you import with a subflow NR should detect the existence of it and ask you to either replace or.... something else.... (Can't remember)

So making copies of it shouldn't happen. They should be filtered at the NR level.

(BTW, versions?)
NR,
O/S,
Node.js,
Javascript,
etc...

May help.

[Colin]

Go back to your previous version (assuming that you are using some sort of version control/backup strategy) and start again, using Copy/Paste.

Also please edit the title of this thread and your initial description to say Import/Export, they are very different.

[smanjunath211]

@Colin

start again

Yes, I did that, and as i told, i have a repetetive task of changing the change node contents, i want to copy, but change the hour marker from H00 to H01 etc. i thought editing the json was easy after exporting and before importing. OR, i could only exclude the subflow bit of the flow, export , change the json , import and wire it manually. whcih is a tedious process again, but better than opening change node, editing the contents and save it.
or may be there is a function node alternative, using a for next loop which may reduce my flow logic.

@Colin

Also please edit the title

done, thanks for pointing out.