Hi Dave,

How would you see this working in a typical use-case? Where would you run this "method" from?

I would see it being as part of the properties of a data flow box.

So on a block, you would click the "Tools" dropdown and then select "Show field sources". It would then list the fields and the name of the source block that field was obtained from?

Thats the kinda thing yes.

Ok. I think it would be relatively simple to put this in. Basically we would simply go through each of the fields in turn and list the blocks that also had a field with that name. So this wouldn't always be accurate (it would be too complicated to track each field down the flow-chain). Please note that some fields might originate from MORE THAN ONE block, for example when you do a merge/join or an append you are typically combining the data from two or more sources that have some fields in common.

Dave, would it be possible to ask you and your colleagues to vote on this idea, as a higher number of votes increases the likelihood that this feature will be developed.

On consultation we're not sure Chris' approach would be wise, since often fields are renamed or may conflict and show misleading information.

From tonight's 2.8, we've added tracking of the "original source" for each field. This is visible in DataManager preview tables and in the Omniscope Table view, by hovering over the column headers, or elsewhere (such as field pickers) upon hovering over the field.

For all fields, we capture the filename (or database table name, for example)) of the data source that the field originates from.
For fields created by operations, we track the operation type.
For fields which are merged from two or more sources, we track all sources in a list.

We're unable to track the block names themselves, so if you've renamed the blocks, you won't see this reflected. We also don't track the names of operations that fields "pass through". But this should greatly assist auditing.