Dynamic Apex

Dynamic Apex describes features of Apex that bypass its typically strongly typed nature. For example, database queries, objects, and fields are part of the language, and references to them are strongly typed, validated at compile time. Dynamic Apex allows you to work with these objects as ordinary strings rather than compiled parts of your program. This has its advantages in that your program can be more dynamic and generic. It also has disadvantages, the primary one being that your code can suffer a greater variety of errors at runtime.

This section describes three dynamic Apex features. Dynamic database queries are SOQL and SOSL queries executed at runtime from strings rather than from compiled code. Schema metadata allows Apex code to introspect the structure of the Force.com database, including its objects, fields, and relationships. Type methods allow introspection of an object’s type, including creation of a new instance.