Feature Request: write null values

[sckaiser]

I have fields which I need to delete back to an 'empty' value. In the SFDC GUI, this can be done by clicking on the field and hitting backspace. I've tried a couple of commands to programmatically achieve the same effect, but all return errors:

rforcecom.update(session, "Account", <redacted>, c(CustomField__c = "")) rforcecom.update(session, "Account", <redacted>, c(CustomField__c = " ")) rforcecom.update(session, "Account", <redacted>, c(CustomField__c = NA))

All return: Error in rforcecom.update(session, "Account", , c(CustomField__c = "")) : XML_PARSER_ERROR: '' (or " " or 'NA') is not valid for the type xsd:double

[StevenMMortimer]

@sckaiser You can currently do this via the Bulk API operations. The rforcecom.update() function is a little more fickle since it uses the SOAP API. For that API I found an example of how to format the XML for such an update at this link: https://developer.salesforce.com/page/PartnerUpdate. It might take awhile to get it into the framework that rforcecom.update() uses, so I will provide the code in another message to show how to directly send the XML over to the SOAP API if you insist on using it.

[StevenMMortimer]

@sckaiser Example Update to Null using the Bulk API:

session <- rforcecom.login(user, password)
job_info <- rforcecom.createBulkJob(session, operation='update', object='Account')
update_data <- data.frame(Id='0016999999999', CustomField__c=NA)

batches_info <- rforcecom.createBulkBatch(session, 
                                         jobId=job_info$id, 
                                         data=update_data)
# check on status of each batch
batches_status <- lapply(batches_info, 
                        FUN=function(x){
                         rforcecom.checkBatchStatus(session, 
                                                    jobId=x$jobId, 
                                                    batchId=x$id)
                                                    })
# get details on each batch
batches_detail <- lapply(batches_info, 
                        FUN=function(x){
                         rforcecom.getBatchDetails(session, 
                                                   jobId=x$jobId, 
                                                   batchId=x$id)
                                                   })
# close the job
close_job_info <- rforcecom.closeBulkJob(session, jobId=job_info$id)

[StevenMMortimer]

@sckaiser Example Update to Null using the SOAP API:

Remember to change to your specific Id in the root variable shown below

 root <- 
 '<update>
  <sobject xsi:type="sf:Account">
 <id>0016999999999</id>
 <fieldsToNull>CustomField__c</fieldsToNull>
 </sobject>
 </update>'

 #build soapBody
 soapBody <- paste0('<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
                    <env:Envelope xmlns:env="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
                    <env:Header>
                    <SessionHeader>
                    <sessionId>', session['sessionID'], '</sessionId>
                    </SessionHeader>
                    </env:Header>
                    <env:Body>',
                    as(root, 'character'),
                    '</env:Body>
                    </env:Envelope>')

 # perform request
 h <- basicHeaderGatherer()
 t <- basicTextGatherer()
 httpHeader <- c("SOAPAction"='update', 'Content-Type'="text/xml")
 curlPerform(url=URL, postfields=soapBody, 
             httpheader=httpHeader, customrequest="PATCH",
             headerfunction = h$update, writefunction = t$update, 
             ssl.verifypeer=F)

 x.root <- xmlRoot(xmlInternalTreeParse(t$value(), asText=T))

x.root will return a blank if successful

[sckaiser]

@ReportMort Thanks Steve! I'll mark as closed.