Is this an abuse of ternary operator and inline SOQL or is this acceptable?

Question

I have written a function like the one below to check if there is atleast one occurrence of a given Id in either of the two objects. I am having doubts on if I should use an if branch or use a ternary expression like this? Which is more readable?

public static Boolean isPresent(SObject object) {
    if(object.Id == null) return false;
    return
           [SELECT count() FROM A__c WHERE Obj__c =: object.Id LIMIT 1] > 0 ? true :
           [SELECT count() FROM B__c WHERE Obj__c =: object.Id LIMIT 1] > 0;
}

Answer 1

Inferring a little bit here, based on your question that A__c and B__c are both children of Obj__c.

If that were the case, and you have to take the hit on the query anyway, why not do a relationship query on the parent record. (I renamed A__c and B__c to "Plant__c" and "Animal__c" because it reads better):

Obj__c myRecord = [SELECT Id, 
                    (SELECT Id FROM Plants__r LIMIT 1),
                    (SELECT Id FROM Animals__r LIMIT 1)
                   FROM Obj__c
                   WHERE Id: = object.Id];

return myRecord.Plants__r.size() > 0 || myRecord.Animals__r.size() > 0;

You may need a null check in there on Plants__r and Animals__r (I'm doing this freehand, no actual checking). But in theory, if you're making one trip to the DB, why not just get everything you want the one time? If you're just trying to see if the Id is used in one-or-more children...relationship queries will help you do this.

Answer 2

It seems a bit unclear to me, but it's perfectly acceptable. I'd go with something like:

return     [SELECT count() FROM A__c WHERE Id =: object.Id LIMIT 1] > 0 ||
           [SELECT count() FROM B__c WHERE Id =: object.Id LIMIT 1] > 0;

Take a look at this thread too.

EDIT: for more of similar branches, I'd go with something more funny, like:

return     [SELECT count() FROM A__c WHERE Id =: object.Id LIMIT 1] +
           [SELECT count() FROM B__c WHERE Id =: object.Id LIMIT 1] +
           [SELECT count() FROM C__c WHERE Id =: object.Id LIMIT 1] +
           [SELECT count() FROM D__c WHERE Id =: object.Id LIMIT 1] > 0;