How to populate values on sobject dynamically for different types?

Question

I have a method that puts an sObject to a queue that is updated once a trigger handler completes processing all records.

public static void enqueueUpdate(Id sObjectId,Map<String,String> keyValue){
    SObject toUpdate = sObjectId.getSObjectType().newSObject(sObjectId);
    for(String key : keyValue.keySet()){
        toUpdate.put(key,keyValue.get(key));
    }
    sObjectsToUpdate.add(toUpdate); 

}

Finally, another method call updates sObjectsToUpdate at once.

However, I have a problem with non-string values. The update fails with error:

System.SObjectException: Illegal assignment from String to Boolean

Is there a way to dynamically set the type?

Answer 1

Yes, sure, but you need firstly check for field type, for example:

private static Boolean isFieldTypeString(DisplayType fieldType) {
    if (fieldType == DisplayType.EMAIL
            || fieldType == DisplayType.STRING
            || fieldType == DisplayType.PHONE
            || fieldType == DisplayType.PICKLIST
            || fieldType == DisplayType.TEXTAREA
            || fieldType == DisplayType.REFERENCE
            || fieldType == DisplayType.ID
            || fieldType == DisplayType.URL) {
        return true;
    }

    return false;
}

And only then assign the value (your keyValue map should be Map<String, Object>):

public static void enqueueUpdate(Id sObjectId, Map<String, Object> keyValue) {
    SObject toUpdate = sObjectId.getSObjectType().newSObject(sObjectId);
    for (SObjectField field_i : toUpdate.getSObjectType().getDescribe().fields.getMap().values()) {
        if (!field_i.getDescribe().isUpdateable()) {
            continue;
        }

        String fieldName_i = field_i.getDescribe().name;
        DisplayType fieldType_i = field_i.getDescribe().type;
        Object valueToCheck = keyValue.get(fieldName_i);

        if (valueToCheck == null) {
            continue;
        }

        if (isFieldTypeString(fieldType_i)) {
            toUpdate.put(fieldName_i, (String) valueToCheck);
        } else if (isFieldTypeDecimal(fieldType_i)) {
            toUpdate.put(fieldName_i, (Decimal) valueToCheck);
        } else if (isFieldTypeBoolean(fieldType_i)) {
            //...
        } else if (fieldType_i == DisplayType.DATE) {
            //...
        } else if (fieldType_i == DisplayType.DATETIME) {
            //...
        }
    }

    sObjectsToUpdate.add(toUpdate);
}

Now you should only implement methods like isFieldTypeString:

• isFieldTypeDecimal
• isFieldTypeBoolean