Getting Person Account Fields using Apex

Question

Can we use describeSObject to get the fields from a Person Account?

Normally we would use the following to get the fields from an Object:

Map<String, Schema.SObjectType> gd = Schema.getGlobalDescribe(); 
Map<String, Schema.SObjectField> fieldMap = schemaMap.get('Account').getDescribe().fields.getMap();

How can we distinguish Person Account Fields from Business Account Fields?

Answer 1

//To get a map of all fields an object
Map<String, Schema.SObjectField> M =Schema.SObjectType.Account.fields.getMap();
 //Boolean flag to detect person account enabled or not
  Boolean isPersonAccountEnabled=M.containsKey('IsPersonAccount');
  //Debug Statements
   System.debug('MAP DEBUG'+M);
  System.debug('PERSON ACCOUNT ENABLED'+isPersonAccountEnabled);

You are on target.If person Account enabled you will be able to get all fields also the isPersonAccount will be true .

Person Account fields ends with __pc while normal Account fields ends in __c.

Answer 2

You can definitely get Person Account fields using Apex. The following describe of Accounts in my sandbox showed Person Account fields such as PersonHomePhone.

Schema.DescribeSObjectResult a = Account.SObjectType.getDescribe();
Map<String,Schema.SObjectField> accountFields = a.fields.getMap();
for (String key: accountFields.keySet()){
    System.debug(key);
}