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Apex Design Patterns
Apex Design Patterns

Apex Design Patterns: Harness the power of Apex design patterns to build robust and scalable code architectures on the Force.com platform

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Apex Design Patterns

Chapter 2. Creational Patterns

Apex programming revolves around objects and classes. During the course of application development, we create multiple classes. Also, we create objects of these classes to satisfy business requirements. Creating an object of a class within another class, creates dependency between those classes. This is also known as tight coupling.

As discussed in the previous chapter, tight coupling is considered inferior, as it can negatively impact the code's maintainability and scalability. Creational design patterns can help us avoid tight coupling by hiding the object creational logic.

Creational design patterns can be considered in the following scenarios:

  • Instantiating classes in the Apex Scheduler class. If we directly instantiate the Apex class in scheduler using new keyword, then the class gets serialized and, therefore, locked for further changes.
  • Using multiple classes while creating test data in test classes.
  • Creating code libraries only...

Factory method pattern

Often, we find that some classes have common features (behavior) and can be considered classes of the same family. For example, multiple payment classes represent a family of payment services. Credit card, debit card, and net banking are some of the examples of payment classes that have common methods, such as makePaymentauthorizePayment, and so on. Using the factory method pattern, we can develop controller classes, which can use these payment services, without knowing the actual payment type at design time.

Note

The factory method pattern is a creational design pattern used to create objects of classes from the same family without knowing the exact class name at design time.

Using the factory method pattern, classes can be instantiated from the common factory method. The advantage of using this pattern is that it delegates the creation of an object to another class and provides a good level of abstraction.

Let's learn this pattern using the following...

Abstract factory pattern

The Universal Call Center company is growing very fast, and they have a small Force.com application where agents can log a request to place an order for a new computer. Developers have just learned about the factory method design pattern and are very excited to implement the same design pattern in this scenario as well. They decided to create an interface of the computer type and its different implementations, such as high-configuration and low-configuration computers. However, they were disappointed when they heard that they need to support various types of configurations other than low and high configurations. For example, some computers need high end processors but small monitors and less storage. There were a few requests regarding an average processor but an LCD monitor and SSD storage.

Abstract factory pattern

By this time, developers realized that the factory method pattern cannot be used in this scenario. Let's see how they solved this problem.

The abstract factory pattern...

The singleton pattern

The singleton design pattern restricts the instantiation of a class to only one object.

This is a useful design pattern in Apex and is frequently used. As discussed in the previous chapter, Salesforce has various governor limits; for example, a number of SOQL queries, a number of query rows returned, and a number of DML operations that can be performed in a single request.

Using the singleton design pattern, we can make sure that utility classes are instantiated only once, which can help in avoiding governor limits.

The sales division of a call center receives calls either from a customer or broker who is interested in the product. If a call comes directly from a customer, then the call center agents need to create a new opportunity record with all the required information. Alternatively, if a call comes from a broker, then the call center agents need to create an opportunity record and then record it for a broker as well. Brokers are eligible for commission...

The builder pattern

The builder pattern is used to instantiate an object of a complex class using the step-by-step approach and return a constructed object at once.

The intention of the factory method and abstract factory method patterns is to use polymorphism to construct objects, as discussed in the initial part of this book. However, in this design pattern, a new independent Builder class is used to construct objects. This pattern is very useful when many parameters are needed to construct and initialize an object.

Developers of Universal Call Center were enjoying their success after the implementation of the singleton pattern and resolving excess SOQL queries. Now, it was time to write a test class for the code written in the singleton design pattern.

Developers came up with the following test class:

@isTest(SeeAllData = false) 
public class OpportunityTriggerTest { 
     
    //Test method to test if state is populated 
    //on Opportunity and Brokers 
    static testMethod void validateState...

The prototype pattern

The prototype design pattern is used to create a new object of a class based on an existing object of the same class. It helps avoid the repetitive code used to initialize a newly created object.

Developers of Universal Call Center solved many problems associated with the creation of an object, using design patterns, such as the factory method, singleton, abstract factory method, and builder pattern. Now, they are confident about how to simplify, manage, and solve problems created while instantiating objects. They were working on the module of an application where they needed to create a duplicate copy of the Apex helper class used to perform various operations.

The following is a code snippet of a wrapper class, which simply sets and gets the Opportunity object:

public class OpportunityWrapper { 
     
    private Opportunity opp ; 
     
    public void setOpportunity(Opportunity o){ 
        opp = o ; 
    } 
     
    public Id getOpportunityId() 
    { 
   ...

Factory method pattern


Often, we find that some classes have common features (behavior) and can be considered classes of the same family. For example, multiple payment classes represent a family of payment services. Credit card, debit card, and net banking are some of the examples of payment classes that have common methods, such as makePaymentauthorizePayment, and so on. Using the factory method pattern, we can develop controller classes, which can use these payment services, without knowing the actual payment type at design time.

Note

The factory method pattern is a creational design pattern used to create objects of classes from the same family without knowing the exact class name at design time.

Using the factory method pattern, classes can be instantiated from the common factory method. The advantage of using this pattern is that it delegates the creation of an object to another class and provides a good level of abstraction.

Let's learn this pattern using the following example:

The Universal...

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Key benefits

  • Apply Creational, Structural and behavioural patterns in Apex to fix governor limit issues.
  • Have a grasp of the anti patterns to be taken care in Apex which could have adverse effect on the application.
  • The authors, Jitendra Zaa is a salesforce MVP and Anshul Verma has 12+ years of experience in the area of application development.

Description

Apex is an on-demand programming language providing a complete set of features for building business applications – including data models and objects to manage data. Apex being a proprietor programming language from Salesforce to be worked with multi tenant environment is a lot different than traditional OOPs languages like Java and C#. It acts as a workflow engine for managing collaboration of the data between users, a user interface model to handle forms and other interactions, and a SOAP API for programmatic access and integration. Apex Design Patterns gives you an insight to several problematic situations that can arise while developing on Force.com platform and the usage of Design patterns to solve them. Packed with real life examples, it gives you a walkthrough from learning design patterns that Apex can offer us, to implementing the appropriate ones in your own application. Furthermore, we learn about the creational patterns that deal with object creation mechanism and structural patterns that helps to identify the relationship between entities. Also, the behavioural and concurrency patterns are put forward explaining the communication between objects and multi-threaded programming paradigm respectively. We later on, deal with the issues regarding structuring of classes, instantiating or how to give a dynamic behaviour at a runtime, with the help of anti-patterns. We learn the basic OOPs principal in polymorphic and modular way to enhance its capability. Also, best practices of writing Apex code are explained to differentiate between the implementation of appropriate patterns. This book will also explain some unique patterns that could be applied to get around governor limits. By the end of this book, you will be a maestro in developing your applications on Force.com for Salesforce

Who is this book for?

If you are a competent developer with working knowledge of Apex, and now want to deep dive into the world of Apex design patterns to optimize the application performance, then this book is for you. Prior knowledge of Salesforce and Force.com platform is recommended.

What you will learn

  • Apply OOPs principal in Apex to design a robust and efficient solution to address various facets to a business problem
  • Get to grips with the benefits and applicability of using different design patterns in Apex
  • Solve problems while instantiating, structuring and giving dynamic behavior to Apex classes
  • Understand the implementation of creational, structural, behavioral, concurrency and anti-patterns in your application
  • Follow the Apex best practices to resolve governor limit issues
  • Get clued up about the Inheritance, abstract classes, polymorphism in Apex to deal with the object mechanism
  • Master various design patterns and determine the best out of them
  • Explore the anti patterns that could not be applied to Apex and their appropriate solutions

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Publication date : Apr 27, 2016
Length: 256 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781782173656
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Product Details

Publication date : Apr 27, 2016
Length: 256 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781782173656
Vendor :
Salesforce
Category :
Languages :

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Table of Contents

6 Chapters
1. An Introduction to Apex Design Pattern Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. Creational Patterns Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. Structural Patterns Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. Behavioral Patterns Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Handling Concurrency in Apex Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. Anti-patterns and Best Practices Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

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Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon 4.7
(9 Ratings)
5 star 66.7%
4 star 33.3%
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Tilak Raj Jun 06, 2018
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Very good book for intermediate developer
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Crista Jul 14, 2018
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If you are a salesforce developer and you are looking to improve your skills this is a must buy.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Major Jan 19, 2020
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
This is a must have for any serious Developers as it addresses some of today's businesses' biggest challenges, code maintenance. With the wave of third party development companies are engaging, each solution will likely have to understand the design patterns and anti patterns. If they are unable to do so there is a tendency to isolate and create bigger issues for future application extensibility
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Kshitij Shah Jun 25, 2018
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
One of the best books on Apex Development that explains the concepts and best practices to be followed in a very precise manner. Also it includes sample examples that easily helps to understand the various design patterns.I recommend it for all Salesforce Developers and enthusiasts.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Honest Reviews Mar 24, 2018
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Lots of cool information
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