Node reference using another field

Nobody knows how to do this?

There is an action 'Populate CCK field' that can be used for setting a node reference field. The problem here is that the field stores a node ID, not the title of the node (though often it is the title that is displayed).

You could do what you want in a fashion similar to this:

• A view that takes a string as an argument, and returns all the nodes with that string as title. (This will be used to get the node ID when you have the title.)
• The PHP filter module enabled (from core)
• A suitable trigger for the rule
• The action 'Populate a field'
• PHP to set the field value. Here you will have to call the view created above, send something like [node:field_manually_entered_title] as argument, and fetch the results.

The most tricky part here is of course the last step. It is definately feasible, but before going down this track I recommend that you consider changing the architecture intestead. Could the textfield with node titles as strings be changed to a regular node reference field?

Good luck!
//Johan Falk, NodeOne, Sweden