Is it the case that to change a field type in CiviCRM there are only 3 steps?

Question

does this post in the old forum from Lobo still hold true?

1. change the value in civicrm_custom_field
2. change the column type in the value table
3. truncate civicrm_cache

Answer 1

Sometimes its possible to change the field type from UI, but it totally depends upon from what field type you want to convert to.

An easy win would

1. Single select to radio or vice versa(change the value in civicrm_custom_field)
2. Multi select to checkbox or vice versa(change the value in civicrm_custom_field)

If the change would involve data type like text to int or float etc it would involve

1. Change the value in civicrm_custom_field
2. Convert the data for the the field from old data type to new data type
3. change the column type in the value table