Rich SObjects

A higher-level, modular library for interacting with the Salesforce API in web applications. Compared to lower-level libraries that only provide literal translation of the API to Java, Rich SObjects sits on top of these lower-level libraries to provide services like:

• RichSObject interface that combines sobject data and metadata into easy to use, traversable, iterable objects.
• Chainable filters for streams of data and metadata. Instead of dealing with lists of records, treat them as a iterable stream that can be modularly filtered.
• Choice of lower-level API providers. Rich SObjects provides a reference richsobjects-api-jersey-client implementation, but any provider can be used -- REST or SOAP.
• Transparent session providing. Define how to provide session once and forget it.
• Modular API caching layer. Cut down on unneeded API calls using the included richsobjects-cache-simple or supplying your own provider.

Example Usage

// Initialize the service
RichSObjectsService service = new RichSObjectsServiceImpl();

// Query
Iterator<RichSObject> records = service.query("SELECT Name, CreatedDate, AccountId FROM Contact WHERE AccountId != null");

// Iterate over the records (fetching additional batches is handled for you)
while (records.hasNext()) {
    RichSObject record = records.next();

    // Iterate over the fields. Add a nestable filter to narrow down your view
    Iterator<RichSObject.RichField> fields = new PopulatedFieldsOnly(record.getFields());
    while (fields.hasNext()) {
        RichSObject.RichField field = fields.next();

        // Easy access to metadata and data together. Referenced object name resolution with asAnyWithNameRef()
        field.getMetadata().getLabel() + ": " + field.asAnyWithNameRef();
    }

    // Direct access to fields (with case-insensitive field names)
    record.getField("createdDate").getValue();                                               // raw value
    record.getField("createdDate").asAny();                                                  // implicitly converted to Java type
    record.getField("createdDate").asDate();                                                 // explicitly converted to Java type
    record.getField("accountId").asRef().getField("ownerId").getValue();                     // traverse relationships and data is fetched automatically
    record.getField("accountId").asRef().getField("ownerId").getMetadata().isUpdateable();   // metadata is always accessible where you need it, even across relationships
}

// Setting field values
final RichSObject fetchedRecord = service.fetch(account, id);                           // immutable and does not change below
final RichSObject updatedRecord = fetchedRecord.getField("Name").setValue("NEW VALUE"); // returns a new immutable copy of the record
final RichSObject savedRecord   = service.update(updatedRecord);                        // sends update to API and gets a fresh copy of the record

Adding Rich SObjects to an App

This is a modular library and the various modules can added to your pom.xml as dependencies for desired functionality:

Core Library

This module contains core Rich SObjects library and is required for all projects.

    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.github.ryanbrainard</groupId>
        <artifactId>richsobjects-core</artifactId>
        <version>${richsobjects.version}</version>
    </dependency>

Low-Level SFDC Client APIs

These modules provide low-level SFDC API support to the core library. One of the following client APIs must be included. Alternatively, a custom or third-party SfdcApiClientProvider implementaion can be included.

    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.github.ryanbrainard</groupId>
        <artifactId>richsobjects-api-jersey-client</artifactId>
        <version>${richsobjects.version}</version>
    </dependency>

Caching Layers

These modules provide caching support between the core library and the provided low-level SFDC client API. Caching is optional, but highly recommended as Rich SObjects requires many API calls for fetching metadata that can be avoided with caching. The caching layers make a best attempt to invalidate cached data when known changes are made to the data, but are suseptable to changes made directly in Salesforce or by third-party applications. If signifigant changes are made to metadata and caches need to be invalidated across a distributed system, all app servers can provide a new synchonized value for the envinronment variable RICH_SOBJECT_CACHE_KEY_PREFIX.

Zero or more cache modules can be included. If no cache modules are included, caching will be disabled. If more than one cache module is included, they will be wrapped around each other in the order they are on the classpath (i.e. the order they are declare in your pom.xml), so slower, more persistant caches should be declared first. At runtime, the service will make requests to the outer layers, which will delegate to inner caching layers (and eventually to the low-level API client) if the given layer does not contain a cached response. If the classpath order is not predicable, an explicit com.github.ryanbrainard.richsobjects.api.client.SfdcApiCacheProvider provider file can also be supplied in META-INF/services to enforce the order of layers. Note, the order of layer invocation (oppsite order of cache delegation) is logged on first use.

Memcahed Caching

A caching layer that attaches to Memcache. This is the best choice for distributed systems that can share a common Memcache cluster. If Memcached is not configured correctly, this layer will be disabled.

    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.github.ryanbrainard</groupId>
        <artifactId>richsobjects-cache-memcached</artifactId>
        <version>${richsobjects.version}</version>
    </dependency>

In addition the following environment variables must to set to configure memcached:

• MEMCACHE_USERNAME
• MEMCACHE_PASSWORD
• MEMCACHE_SERVERS

If running an application on Heroku, Memcache can be automatically provisioned and these variables set by executing:

heroku plugins:add memcache

Simple In-Memory Caching

A simple in-memory, LRU caching layer. This can be used alone or in conjunction with other caching layers. This is not recommended for use with distributed systems.

    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.github.ryanbrainard</groupId>
        <artifactId>richsobjects-cache-simple</artifactId>
        <version>${richsobjects.version}</version>
    </dependency>

Session Management

Implement com.github.ryanbrainard.richsobjects.api.client.SfdcApiSessionProvider to tell RichSObjects how to get session info from your app. Then put the fully-qualified name of your class in a file named /META-INF/services/com.github.ryanbrainard.richsobjects.api.client.SfdcApiSessionProvider

Logging

This library uses SLF4J for logging, which is disabled by default. To enable logging, include of the SLF4J binding implementation of your choice in your application.

Hacking

If you'd like to contribute to this project, fork it and send me a pull request with tests.