Accessing Named Credentials' data in apex

Question

Is there a way of accessing the data (exact fields) stored in Spring 15' Named Credentials from apex? For example the username, password and endpoint link fields? And I don't mean for the callout, but for other purposes.

Answer 1

You can use Named Credentials to create an End point URL with necessary parameters. For example, if this is is your URL:

https://www.someendpointurl.com?param1=named&param2=credentials

In Apex, You can access this URL like this:

request.setEndpoint('callout:EndPointURL');

Where, EndPointURL is the Name of the Named Credentials.

Benefits of using Named Credentials:

• Authentication is done by Salesforce and you need not to worry about that.
• No need to create a Remote Site Setting if using a Named Credential.
• Callout is easier to maintain. No hard coding involved.
• If are also using Sandboxes for callout, just create the Named Credentials with the same name and save different URL.

Hope this helps..!!

But actually accessing the data stored in the Named Credentials fields (e.g. as String) is not possible.

Answer 2

One option is to use Merge Fields for Apex Callouts That Use Named Credentials. This won't explicitly give you access to the data from the named credential in Apex, but it will allow you to alter how it is used in any callout.

For example, you could define custom request headers:

// non-standard authentication
req.setHeader('X-Username', '{!$Credential.UserName}');
req.setHeader('X-Password', '{!$Credential.Password}');

Or you could include the credentials in the request body:

req.setBody('UserName:{!HTMLENCODE($Credential.Username)}')
req.setBody('Password:{!HTMLENCODE($Credential.Password)}')

Note that there is a special case in a request body where you can use the HTMLENCODE formula function to escape special characters.