DML Statement vs. Database methods in Salesforce

As a Salesforce application developer, we always have a question like in how many ways we can perform the DML operations when dealing with transactions? The answer is Salesforce provides 2 ways to perform the DML operations. Let understand the difference between DML Statement vs. Database methods in Salesforce.

Simple DML Operation Use Case

Inserting Accounts into Database without checking for exceptions

List<Account> accounts = new List<Account>();
accounts.add(new Account(Name = 'Test Account'));
accounts.add(new Account(Name = 'Test Account'));
System.debug('Account List Size : ' +accounts.size());
insert accounts;

Using this approach, we don’t know why the transaction is failing here and the above example is quite simple transaction to understand and we will know why it will fail but if you think about the bulk transactions with more fields then it is hard to find. We need to spend our time in going through the logs why it is failed, and it is time consuming to overcome that we can use the try catch block to handle the exceptions.

Catch exceptions while performing the DML operation

If you execute the below code snippet in anonymous window, you will see the exception saying Required field missing. But what about the whole transaction will it fail the whole transaction even though the first record is good? To handle this type of situations we can use the Database class methods.

List<Account> accounts = new List<Account>();
accounts.add(new Account(Name = 'Test Account'));
accounts.add(new Account(Name = 'Test Account'));
System.debug('Account List Size : ' +accounts.size());
try {
insert accounts;
} catch(DMLException e) {
throw new DMLException('Unable to Perform the DML Operation on Account : ' +e.getMessage());
}

DML does not support partial execution, which means if an error encountered in execution at that moment whole execution will rolled back and throw error messages. Use Try and Catch to handler exception and throw error messages well.

Using Database class for inserting the records

It supports partial execution, which means if an error encountered an apex records execution. Then It will not rolled back the full transactions.

Approach: All or nothing.

Syntax: Database.insert(List<sObject> object, Boolean);

The execution of below code will throw the exception without performing any DML operation even though the first record is good. But how can we process the good ones without failing them? It is possible by changing the Boolean value to false.

List<Account> accounts = new List<Account>();
 accounts.add(new Account(Name = 'Test Account 11'));
 accounts.add(new Account(Name = ''));
 System.debug('Account List Size : ' +accounts.size());
 try {
 Database.SaveResult[] results = Database.insert(accounts, true);
 } catch(DMLException e) {
 throw new DMLException('Unable to Perform the DML Operation on Account : ' +e.getMessage());
 }

If we execute the below code it will insert the first record and only the bad record is failed saying “required field missing”

List<Account> accounts = new List<Account>();
accounts.add(new Account(Name = 'Test Account 11'));
accounts.add(new Account(Name = ''));
System.debug('Account List Size : ' +accounts.size());
try {
	Database.SaveResult[] results = Database.insert(accounts, false);
	// iterate over the list of returned results
	for(Database.SaveResult result : results) {
		if(result.isSuccess()) {
			System.debug('Successfully inserted Accounts : ' + result.getId());
		} else {
		// iterate over the failed ones
			for(Database.Error error : result.getErrors()) {
				System.debug('Error Status : ' + error.getStatusCode() + ' : ' + 'Error Fields : ' + error.getFields());
			}
		}
	}
} catch(DMLException e) {
	throw new DMLException('Unable to Perform the DML Operation on Account : ' +e.getMessage());
}

Let see the code, I used Database.saveResult to store the DML operation results and later in the code I am iterating over the results to get the Success record Id’s and handling the exceptions by using throw statement. If you notice again, I am using the try catch block to handle the exceptions is it necessary? I would like you to know the answer for that question. One possible case of using is if you want to re-attempt the DML operation again for the failed records and if they fail again due to some other reason then the catch block will help to handle the exceptions. Adding try catch block will not do any harm to the code.

Learn more about Database method.

Method of SaveResult

getErorrs() : returns the error objects with error code and description.
getId() : returns the Id of object that you are trying to insert or update.
isSuccess() : Boolean that is set to true for the successful ones and false for the failed ones.

Differences between Database Methods and DML Statements

DML Statement Video