Sitecore Config Patch for child elements in a dynamic list

Question

Not sure if this is possible. For example I have following config:

<xx>
 <yy id="1">
     <zz value="hehe"/>
 </yy>
 <yy id="2">
     <zz value="hehe"/>
 </yy>
 <yy id="3">
     <zz value="hehe"/>
 </yy>
 <yy id="4">
     <zz value="hehe"/>
 </yy>
</xx>

I wonder if I can create one patch config to update the value of zz for all items in the list? Even if a new yy is added in the future?

I imagine it should look like this (I made this up):

<yy id="[[*]]">
    <zz value="newValue"/>
</yy>

Otherwise I need to create a patch for each item yy and whenever a new yy is added, I need to patch it as well.

Thanks!

Answer 1

It is not possible using the patching mechanism in Sitecore to replace the values of multiple elements using a single patch config statement.

If the values happen to all be the same, and you want to replace them, one possible solution is to make use of sc.variables, e.g.

<sc.variable name="myConfigValue" value="S1t3c0r3" />

You can then make use of this variable in your configuration, for example:

<xx>
 <yy id="1">
     <zz value="$(myConfigValue)" />
 </yy>
 <yy id="2">
     <zz value="$(myConfigValue)" />
 </yy>
 <yy id="3">
     <zz value="$(myConfigValue)" />
 </yy>
 <yy id="4">
     <zz value="$(myConfigValue)" />
 </yy>
</xx>

If you need to change the value, then you can use a patch config to change the value of the variable, e.g.

<configuration xmlns:set="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/set/">
  <sitecore>
    <sc.variable name="myConfigValue" value="eXp1r13nc3" />
  </sitecore>
</configuration>

As long as any nodes you add later use the variable token, it will get replaced by Sitecore during the patching process.