R1D38 SOQL and SOSL Queries in Apex
I’m working through the Apex Basics & Database module on Trailhead.
I learned about using built in sObjects and also about making custom sObjects. Next I learned about how to use DML in order to manipulate records within the system. After getting the basics down we dove into SOQL.
SOQL
SOQL is shot for Salesforce Object Query Language. If you are familiar with SQL you will feel right at home. SOQL makes querying data very simple. One pretty poweful feature is the ability to run inline queries and return the results to a variable. In pretty much every other language you would need to create a cursor and iterate over the results in order to read the values from a database. In SOQL you simply assing the results to an array.# Python Exampleconn = sqlite3.connect(’example.db’) c = conn.cursor() results = c.execute(“SELECT Name, Phone FROM Accounts”)
for row in results: print row
# SOQL Example Accounts[] accts = [SELECT Name, Phone FROM Account];
I think this bit trips up a lot of new programmers so it is great to see how SOQL makes it easy.
One thing worth noting is that you canno use the handy “SELECT *” that is found in SQL.
Unlike other SQL languages, you can’t specify * for all fields. You must specify every field you want to get explicitly. If you try to access a field you haven’t specified in the SELECT clause, you’ll get an error because the field hasn’t been retrieved.The built in developer console in Salesforce makes it very easy to run queries and inspect your objects without writing any additional code.
Cool things about SOQL:
- you can pass in variables directly into a query
- you can use dot notation to get related records in a query
- you can use for loops in queries
SOSL
SOSL is short for Salesforce Object Search Language and it allows you to do robust full text search on records similar to Apache Lucene. The main difference is that it allows you to search accross multiple objects instead of just a single one.FIND 'SearchQuery' [IN SearchGroup] [RETURNING ObjectsAndFields]In order to pass a variable into the search query, you use the colon symbol.
public class MultiSearch {
public static List> searchAll (String searchTerm) {
List> searchList = [FIND :searchTerm IN ALL FIELDS RETURNING Account(Name),Contact(FirstName,LastName)];
return searchList;
}
}
Thank you for reading! Share your thoughts with me on bluesky, mastodon, or via email.
Check out some more stuff to read down below.
Most popular posts this month
- Great Lakes, Illinois
- My Custom Miniflux CSS Theme
- Ladybird on Debian Stable
- SQLite DB Migrations with PRAGMA user_version
- 2025
Recent Favorite Blog Posts
This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.
- Clicks Communicator from Chris Hannah
- A Year Of Vibes from Armin Ronacher's Thoughts and Writings
- Pluralistic: A perfect distillation of the social uselessness of finance (18 Dec 2025) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
- Moving from WordPress to Substack from charity.wtf
- Grow, Like a Tree Not a Cancer from Jim Nielsen’s Blog
- Pluralistic: All the books I reviewed in 2025 (02 Dec 2025) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
- DEP-18: A proposal for Git-based collaboration in Debian from Optimized by Otto
- [RIDGELINE] No Phones in The Ten-don Shop from Craig Mod — Writer + Photographer
Articles from blogs I follow around the net
The year of technoligarchy
In 2025, Trump brought tech executives into power to dismantle regulators and write their own rules. But the instabilities they’re creating may be their downfall.
via Citation Needed January 7, 2026we are here. Performance at Beyond Tellerrand
This performance has been years in the making. In a sense, you could say it’s been a lifetime in the making. On November 6th, 2025, my brother Ian and I gave a “talk” at the amazing Beyond Tellerrand conference in […]
via Blog – Brad Frost January 7, 2026Pluralistic: Writing vs AI (07 Jan 2026)
Today's links Writing vs AI: If you wouldn't ask an AI to eat a delicious pizza for you, why would you ask it to write a college essay? Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: WELL State of the World; A poem in 30m logfiles; We…
via Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow January 7, 2026Generated by openring