Can I use a text field to create an Account object in a trigger?

Question

I am adding an after insert trigger on lead, where if there is a value (id) in a custom field (fromAccount__c), that specific account with said id, will be deleted.

• this is in order to solve How to Convert a Contact back to lead - and delete the old contact and account

So, my trigger started like this, but I don't understand how to get the account inserted correctly into the accountsToDelete

• Should I actually create the Account Object?

trigger deleteAccountFromContact on Lead (after insert) {

////////////////////////////////////// // This trigger deletes the account that the contact // was converted from.

if (Trigger.new.fromAccount__c != null)
{

    List<Account> accountsToDelete = new List<Account>();

    Account tempAccount = new Account(id=Trigger.new.fromAccount__c);

    accountsToDelete.add( tempAccount ) ;

    delete accountsToDelete;
} }

Another option to make this a more SOQL trigger will be to use :

Account tempAcc = [Select Account.id from Account where AccountId =:Trigger.new.fromAccount__c]

But I get the error:

Error: Compile Error: Initial term of field expression must be a concrete SObject: LIST at line 15 column 81

if (Trigger.new.fromAccount__c != null)

{

    List<Account> accountsToDelete = new List<Account>();

    Account tempAccount = [Select Account.id from Account where AccountId =:Trigger.new.fromAccount__c]

    accountsToDelete.add( tempAccount ) ;

    delete accountsToDelete;
} }

• Can I create an account based on a text field of ID?
• should I make this a more SOQL valued trigger?
• else what's wrong with my code?

Answer 1

I think you want

 Account tempAccount = [Select Id from Account where Id =:Trigger.new[0].fromAccount__c]

and then your second option should work. I don't quite follow why you were trying to create an Account in the first approach?

Also - the Trigger.new collection is just that - a collection. You can't treat it like a single record. In this case you're assuming there's only one record, so you actually want

:Trigger.new[0].fromAccount__c