LWC: How to potentially return several different object lists based on user input

Question

I am trying to allow a user to select an object from a dropdown, and based on the chosen object, return a random number of records. The problem I'm having is that I am having trouble returning different types of object lists in the controller. What is the appropriate way to do this?

Controller

public with sharing class SearchObjectsToAudit {
@AuraEnabled(Cacheable=true)

public static Account[] searchAccounts(){
     return [SELECT Id, Name FROM Account ORDER BY Name LIMIT 50];
}
@AuraEnabled(Cacheable=true)
public static Bear__c[] searchIntakes(){
     return [SELECT Id, Name FROM Intake ORDER BY Name LIMIT 50];
}
@AuraEnabled(Cacheable=true)
public static Contact[] searchMatters(){
     return [SELECT Id, Name FROM Contact ORDER BY Name LIMIT 50];
}
@AuraEnabled(Cacheable=true)
public static SearchObjects(String searchTerm) {
     System.debug(searchTerm);
     if (searchTerm == 'Account') {
        return searchAccounts();
    }
    else if (searchTerm == 'Intake') {
        return searchIntakes();
    }
    else if (searchTerm == 'Matters') {
        return searchMatters();
    }
    return null;
}

}

HTML

<template>
<lightning-combobox
    name="object"
    label="Object"
    value={searchTerm}
    placeholder="Select Object To Audit"
    options={options}
    onchange={handleChange} >
</lightning-combobox>

<lightning-card title="Bears" icon-name="utility:animal_and_nature">
        <div class="slds-card__body_inner">
            <!-- Start bear list -->
            <template if:true={bears.data}>
               <lightning-layout multiple-rows="true" pull-to-boundary="small">
                    <template for:each={bears.data} for:item="bear">
                        <lightning-layout-item key={bear.Id} size="3" class="slds-p-around_x-small">
                                <p>{bear.Name}</p>
                        </lightning-layout-item>
                    </template>
                </lightning-layout>
                <!-- No bears found -->
                <template if:false={hasResults}>
                  <div class="slds-align_absolute-center slds-m-vertical_small">
                        This is beary disturbing, we did not find results...
                    </div>
                </template>
            </template>
            <!-- End bear list -->
            <!-- Data failed to load -->
            <template if:true={bears.error}>
                <div class="slds-text-color_error">
                    An error occurred while loading the bear list
                </div>
            </template>
        </div>
    </lightning-card>

JS File

    import { LightningElement, track, wire} from 'lwc';
    import SearchObjects from 
    '@salesforce/apex/SearchObjectsToAudit.SearchObjects';

    export default class ComboboxBasic extends LightningElement {
@track value = 'Account';
@track searchTerm = '';
@wire(SearchObjects, {searchTerm: '$searchTerm'})
bears;
get options() {
    return [
        { label: 'Account', value: 'Account' },
        { label: 'Intake', value: 'Intake' },
        { label: 'Matter', value: 'Matter' },
    ];
}

handleChange(event) {
    window.clearTimeout(this.delayTimeout);
    const searchTerm = event.target.value;
    // eslint-disable-next-line @lwc/lwc/no-async-operation
    this.delayTimeout = setTimeout(() => {
        this.searchTerm = searchTerm;
    }, 300);

    this.value = event.detail.value;
}

}

Answer 1

Use the generic sObject as the return type:

@AUraEnabled(cacheable=true)
public static sobject[] SearchObjects(String searchTerm) {
  switch on (searchTerm) {
    when 'Account' { return searchAccounts(); }
    when 'Intake' { return searchIntakes(); }
    when 'Matters' { return searchMatters(); }
    when else { return null; }
  }
}

Edit: as an aside, only the top-level method needs to be @AuraEnabled; you wouldn't necessarily need to annotate the others unless you needed to call them directly elsewhere.