Apex is Salesforce’s proprietary programming language that allows developers to execute flow and transaction control statements on the Salesforce platform server in conjunction with calls to the API. To ensure that your Apex code is efficient, maintainable, and scalable, follow these best practices in 2024.
1. Follow Coding Standards
Adhering to coding standards is crucial for writing clean and consistent code. Use meaningful variable and method names, adhere to indentation and spacing conventions, and comment your code adequately. Consistent coding practices make your code easier to read, understand, and maintain.
2. Bulkify Your Code
Salesforce operates in a multi-tenant environment, meaning resources are shared among many users. To ensure efficient resource usage, bulkify your Apex code. This involves writing code that can handle multiple records simultaneously. Use collections like lists, sets, and maps to process records in bulk rather than individually. This practice helps avoid hitting governor limits and improves performance.
3. Use Efficient SOQL Queries
SOQL (Salesforce Object Query Language) queries are essential for retrieving data in Apex. To optimize performance, ensure that your SOQL queries are selective and efficient. Avoid using SELECT FIELDS(ALL) and instead specify the fields you need. Use indexed fields in WHERE clauses and limit the number of records returned. Also, avoid placing SOQL queries inside loops to prevent hitting governor limits.
4. Handle Exceptions Gracefully
Robust error handling is a critical aspect of Apex coding. Use try-catch blocks to handle exceptions gracefully and provide meaningful error messages. Log errors to custom objects or use platform event logging for further analysis. Proper error handling ensures that your application can recover from unexpected issues and provides a better user experience.
5. Write Test Classes
Apex requires a minimum of 75% code coverage by unit tests before deployment to production. However, aiming for 100% code coverage is a best practice that helps ensure your code is thoroughly tested and resilient. Writing comprehensive test classes not only helps meet the minimum requirement but also enhances the reliability and quality of your code. Use test data factories to generate test data, and write both positive and negative test cases to cover various scenarios. Mocking and stubbing can be used to isolate unit tests from external dependencies, providing a robust testing environment.
6. Optimize Trigger Performance
Apex triggers are used to perform operations before or after record changes in Salesforce. To optimize trigger performance, follow the one trigger per object pattern and use trigger frameworks to manage logic. Ensure that your triggers are bulkified and avoid using complex logic within triggers. Delegate the heavy lifting to helper classes and methods.
7. Use Custom Metadata and Custom Settings
Storing configuration data in custom metadata and custom settings can make your code more flexible and easier to maintain. Custom metadata types and custom settings allow you to manage configuration without changing the code. This is particularly useful for feature toggles, environment-specific settings, and other configuration data.
Conclusion
Following best practices for Apex coding ensures that your code is efficient, maintainable, and scalable. By adhering to coding standards, bulkifying your code, optimizing SOQL queries, handling exceptions gracefully, writing test classes, optimizing trigger performance, and using custom metadata and settings, you can develop robust Salesforce applications that perform well and are easy to maintain. Start implementing these best practices today to improve your Apex development.