Unexpected SOQL results

Question

I am trying to learn Querying sObject Relationships through the APEX workbook (http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/apex_workbook/apex_workbook.pdf ) I have 2 objects with a master relationship, in the booklet says that I can query the parent just by specifying the relationship, but for some odd reason the result is quite unexpected

list<Line_Item__c> s = [SELECT Name, Unit_Price__c,Merchandise__r.Price__c,Merchandise__r.Name, Merchandise__r.Description__c FROM Line_Item__c];
system.debug(s);

16:42:24:062 USER_DEBUG [11]|DEBUG|(Line_Item__c:{Name=2, Merchandise__c=a039000000APTh3AAH, Unit_Price__c=200.00, Id=a029000000BuFUuAAN}, Line_Item__c:{Name=1, Merchandise__c=a039000000APTh2AAH, Unit_Price__c=1.50, Id=a029000000BuKcNAAV}, Line_Item__c:{Name=1, Merchandise__c=a039000000APTh2AAH, Unit_Price__c=1.50, Id=a029000000BtuHCAAZ}

I am quering 5 fields but only obtaining 4, and 2 of them are ids when it should be text fields

Answer 1

When writing to the debug log system.debug does not include other SObject instances, like you'd get from relationship queries. For example, Account.name and Account.OwnerId would not be logged even if queried.

The data is there however, you just need a more verbose form of writing out the data, which JSON.serialize or JSON.serializePretty does quite well.

Changing your example to:

list<Line_Item__c> s = [SELECT Name, Unit_Price__c,Merchandise__r.Price__c,Merchandise__r.Name, Merchandise__r.Description__c FROM Line_Item__c];
system.debug(JSON.serializePretty(s));

You should see the related object's (Merchandise__r) fields.