Salesforce Interview Questions on Trigger

Q. What is trigger?
A. Trigger can invoke apex code, they come in handy when we want to perform some custom task just
before or after record is either created updated or deleted.

Q. What are the various event on which a trigger can fire?

A. Trigger is a set of statement which can be executed on the following events :
1. Undelete
2. Update
3. Merge
4. Delete
5. Upsert
6. Insert

Q. Broadly classify the Trigger?

A. Triggers can be broadly classified as before or after Trigger.
Before triggers are used to perform a task before a record is inserted or updated or deleted.
After triggers are used if we want to use the information set by Salesforce system and to make
changes in the other records

Q. What are the considerations while implementing the Triggers?

A. Consider the following before implementing the triggers.
Upsert trigger fires on 4 different events :- before(insert, update), after (insert, update)
Merge trigger are fired on both events on delete
Field history is updated after the trigger has successfully finished processing data.
Any callout should be asynchronous so that trigger does not have to wait for the response.
Trigger cannot have a static keyword in its code.
If a trigger completes successfully the changes are committed to the database and if it fails the
transaction is rolled back.
Read the Apex Developer guide for more detailed considerations.

Q. Write the syntax of Apex Trigger?

A. Trigger TName On ObjName(name the events){
. Apex code here ..
}

Q. What are context variables in regards to trigger?

A. Following are the context variable available in triggers. Please note variables availability varies
according to the type of trigger events.
1. isExecuting
2. isInsert
3. isUpdate
 4. isDelete
5. isBefore
6. isAfter
7. isUndelete
8. new
9. newMap
10. old (update and delete only)
11. oldMap (update and delete only)
12. size

Q. How is Trigger.New Different from Trigger.newMap?

A. Trigger.New variable returns the list of sObject which has invoked the trigger and Trigger.NewMap
returns the map of IDs with the newly entered records. NewMap is only available in after insert, before
and after update and after undelete.

Q. How is Trigger.new different from Trigger.old?

A. Trigger.New variable returns the list of sObject which has invoked the trigger and Trigger.old returns a
list of the older versions of the records which has invoked the trigger. Trigger.Old is only available in update and
delete events

Q. Can a trigger call a batch class?

A. Yes we can call a batch class in trigger as we do in the normal apex code.

Q. Can a trigger make a call to apex callout method?

A. we can call a callout method in Apex Trigger but the only condition is that it has to be an
asynchronous callout, because the trigger flow cannot wait on the response received by the callout
method.

Q. Define Recursive Trigger and how to avoid it?

A. There is a possibility that the result of trigger can end up calling the same trigger again and can run in
a loop, this is known as a recursive trigger. To avoid this scenario we should create a static variable and
check the value of this variable before we execute anything in the trigger.

Q. What do you mean by bulkifying trigger?

A. A trigger that can handle both single record and thousands of record. It is capable of handling mass
action.

Q. Is there any limit on number of trigger define on a object?

A. We can define as many trigger on an object as we want but it is recommended to have one trigger per
object because the order of execution of different trigger is not guaranteed and any trigger can fire first.
Q. Can you explain the order of execution in Triggers?
A. Following is the order of execution of events which salesforce perform before a DML Event.
1. Record is loaded from database or is initialized in case of upset statement.
2. New record filed values are overwriting the old values, now depending on the origin of the
request this flow varies : if the request is from a UI page then the following validations are
performed by salesforce:
a. Any layout specific rules are checked
b. All the required values are checked at layout and field level
c. All the field formats are validated along with the maximum length of field values
If the request originates other than UI then Salesforce only checks for Validation of foreign keys.
3. Now all the before triggers are executed at the database.
4. Most of the validations are performed again to verify that all the required fields are holding
some values and are not null, at this step user defined validations are also executed and the only
validation which are not repeated in this step are the rules specific to layout.
5. After the success of previous step, the record is reviewed for duplicate records, by running the
duplicate rule. If a duplicate is found the flow is stopped and no further actions performed.
6. In this step record is saved to database but it not committed yet.
7. Now all the after Triggers are executed.
8. In this step assignment rules are executed.
9. Now if there is any auto response rule is present then they are executed.
10. Next in the queues are the workflow, they are executed after the auto response .
11. If the workflow was updating a field , then the field s updated in this step and the flow after this
step varies if this was the case.
12. If a field was updated then the before and after update triggers are fired once more and
standard validation are also executed again. Custom validation escalation rule and duplicate
rules are not required to run again.
13. Once the execution has reached this stage, then process are fired if there are any declared on
the object.
14. Now the escalation rules are executed.
15. Entitlement rules are executed if any.
16. If there are any roll up summary field, then they are calculated at this step and the parent object
go through the save process.
17. Now the sharing rules are executed.
18. If we reach this stage, then that means no error has occurred and the data is ready to be
committed to the database and is committed now.
19. Now if there is any post commit logic like email, then that is executed.