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Returning Data from an Apex Server-Side Controller

Return results from a server-side controller to a client-side controller using the return statement. Results data must be serializable into JSON format.
Return data types can be any of the following.
  • Simple—String, Integer, and so on. See Basic Types for details.
  • sObject—standard and custom sObjects are both supported. See Standard and Custom Object Types.
  • Apex—an instance of an Apex class. (Most often a custom class.) See Custom Apex Class Types. You can’t use an Apex inner class as a return value for an Apex method that's called by an Aura component.
  • Collection—a collection of any of the other types. See Collection Types.

Returning Apex Objects

Here’s an example of a controller that returns a collection of custom Apex objects.
1public with sharing class SimpleAccountController {
2    
3    @AuraEnabled
4    public static List<SimpleAccount> getAccounts() {
5
6        // Perform isAccessible() check here
7		
8        // SimpleAccount is a simple "wrapper" Apex class for transport
9        List<SimpleAccount> simpleAccounts = new List<SimpleAccount>();
10
11        List<Account> accounts = [SELECT Id, Name, Phone FROM Account LIMIT 5];
12        for (Account acct : accounts) {
13            simpleAccounts.add(new SimpleAccount(acct.Id, acct.Name, acct.Phone));
14        }
15        
16        return simpleAccounts;
17    }
18}

When an instance of an Apex class is returned from a server-side action, the instance is serialized to JSON by the framework. Only the values of public instance properties and methods annotated with @AuraEnabled are serialized and returned.

For example, here’s a simple “wrapper” Apex class that contains a few details for an account record. This class is used to package a few details of an account record in a serializable format.
1public class SimpleAccount {
2    
3    @AuraEnabled public String Id { get; set; }
4    @AuraEnabled public String Name { get; set; }
5    public String Phone { get; set; }
6    
7    // Trivial constructor, for server-side Apex -> client-side JavaScript
8    public SimpleAccount(String id, String name, String phone) {
9        this.Id = id;
10        this.Name = name;
11        this.Phone = phone;
12    }
13    
14    // Default, no-arg constructor, for client-side -> server-side
15    public SimpleAccount() {}
16    
17}
When returned from a remote Apex controller action, the Id and Name properties are defined on the client-side. However, because it doesn’t have the @AuraEnabled annotation, the Phone property isn’t serialized on the server side, and isn’t returned as part of the result data.