[SalesForce] How to retrieve customFields on standard objects using Ant Migration Tool

Background

I'm trying to reset a dev org by using this ant script.

Most part of the customisations added by default are removed. However, I'm not being able to retrieve custom fields on Opportunity, Account and other standard objects.

I'm using this to get customfields :

<types><members>*</members><name>CustomField</name></types>

And this to get standard objects:

<types><members>*</members><name>CustomObject</name></types>

I've also tried:

<types><members>Account.*</members><name>CustomField</name></types>

and

<types><members>Opportunity</members><name>CustomObject</name></types>

Unsuccessfully

Question

How can I retrieve custom fields on standard object on ant migration tool?

Best Answer

As per the documentation the CustomField metadata type does not support wildcards sadly. You can access Custom Fields on Standard Objects by using the CustomObject metadata type as described here against specific Standard Objects. Then parse the .object file to build your destructiveChanges.xml file. Finally you can also use the sf:listMetadata task to download a list of all custom fields and then filter locally for Standard objects.

     <sf:listMetadata 
        username="${sf.username}"
        password="${sf.password}"
        metadataType="CustomField"/>

You might also be interested in an open-source undeploy Ant target published here, that wraps most of what i suspect your trying to develop up into a single Ant target. Sadly Salesforce do not yet give us a 'clean my org' task, so we build our own!

Related Solutions

[SalesForce] Ant Migration Tool – Not retrieving Task fields

In the Setup UI you will see that custom fields (that are presented for Task) are added under the "Activities" heading and this is also reflected in the package.xml that the Ant tools use.

So your package.xml will need entries like these:

 <types>
    <members>Activity.Intervention_Task_Number__c</members>
    <members>Task.Subject</members>
    <name>CustomField</name>
</types>

where Activity is used for your custom fields and Task is used for standard fields such as Subject (whose picklist values you might want to customise).

[SalesForce] errors while use force migration tool

Moving out of your Packaging Org. You will eventually reach a point where what you have extract is a unmanaged version of your package contents, which can be made to be compatible with a subsequent deployment back to your packaging org, which i'm guessing is what you have later in mind? I have done this before, when I've out grown developing in a packaging org, but rather I've done it with a view to populating a source control system and using that as the central definition of truth for my app.

Developer Workflow from Source Control. You can still use your sandbox orgs for your developers, but have them deploy using the Salesforce Migration Toolkit from your source control system. When your ready you can do a deploy to your packaging org from source control.

Validating Source Control Contents. Note that you can extend this to a continue integration build approach and effectively use the test deploy aspect of the toolkit to confirm your current state of source control is compatible with your packaging org (without actually committing to it until your ready).