Apex Developer Guide

Apex Developer Guide
Release Notes
Getting Started with Apex
Writing Apex
Running Apex
Invoking Apex
Apex Transactions and Governor Limits
Using Salesforce Features with Apex
Actions
Apex Cursors
Approval Processing
Authentication
Chatter Answers and Ideas
Use Cases for the CommercePayments Namespace
Connect in Apex
Moderate Chatter Private Messages with Triggers
Data 360 In Apex
DataWeave in Apex
Moderate Feed Items with Triggers
Experience Cloud Sites
Email
External Services
Flows
Formula Evaluation in Apex
Metadata
Permission Set Groups
Platform Cache
Salesforce Knowledge
Salesforce Files
Salesforce Connect
Salesforce Reports and Dashboards API via Apex
Salesforce Sites
Support Classes
Territory Management 2.0
Integration and Apex Utilities
Debugging, Testing, and Deploying Apex
Apex Reference
Appendices
PDF

Note: This release is in preview. Features described here don’t become generally available until the latest general availability date that Salesforce announces for this release. Before then, and where features are noted as beta, pilot, or developer preview, we can’t guarantee general availability within any particular time frame or at all. Make your purchase decisions only on the basis of generally available products and features.

Formula Evaluation in Apex

Formula evaluation in Apex helps avoid unnecessary DML statements to recalculate formula field values and evaluate dynamic formula expressions. Dynamic formulas in Apex support SObjects and Apex objects as context objects. The context type that corresponds to the Apex class used in the FormulaBuilder.withType() method must be a global, user-defined Apex class. Any fields, properties, or methods that the formula references must also be global.

If formula fields on the input SObjects require a round-trip request to the database, use the Formula.recalculateFormulas() method.

Note

Formulas in Apex support these features.

  • Reference Apex types in formula fields. The values contained in individual components of such Apex types are accessed and evaluated by the formula. Address, Location, URL, and UUID System types are supported.
  • Reference standard lookups and custom lookups in formula fields.
  • Access polymorphic relationship fields.
  • Access the return value from the toString() method in formula fields.

Formula evaluation in Apex is bound by the formula field character limit, but not the compile size limit. A formula can contain up to 3,900 characters including spaces, return characters, and comments.

Formula functions that are available to use in Apex are ones that can be used in validation rules. For details, see Formula Operators and Functions by Context.