Anonymous Blocks

Compile and execute anonymous blocks by using one of these Salesforce development tools.

• Web Console (Beta)
• Salesforce Extensions for Visual Studio Code
• Agentforce Vibes IDE
• Developer Console

You can also execute anonymous blocks by using the executeAnonymous() SOAP API call.

1ExecuteAnonymousResult executeAnonymous(String code)

Note the following about the content of an anonymous block.

• The anonymous block can include user-defined methods and exceptions.
• User-defined methods can’t include the keyword static.
• You don’t have to commit any database changes manually .
• If an Apex trigger within an anonymous block completes successfully, the changes are committed to the database only after all operations in the block finish executing successfully. If your Apex trigger doesn’t complete successfully, any changes made to the database in the anonymous block are rolled back.
• Anonymous blocks run as the current user and can fail to compile if the code violates the user’s object- and field-level permissions.
• The content in the anonymous block has a local scope. For example, although it’s legal to use the global access modifier, it has no meaning. The scope of the method is limited to the anonymous block.
• When you define a class or interface (a custom type) in an anonymous block, it’s considered virtual by default when the anonymous block executes. This fact is true even if your custom type isn’t defined with the virtual modifier.
• Classes and interfaces defined in an anonymous block aren’t saved to your org.

Even though a user-defined method can refer to itself or later methods without the need for forward declarations, variables can’t be referenced before their actual declaration. In this example, the Integer int must be declared while myProcedure1 doesn’t:

1Integer int1 = 0;
2
3void myProcedure1() {
4    myProcedure2();
5}
6
7void myProcedure2() {
8    int1++;
9}
10
11myProcedure1();

The returned result for anonymous blocks includes:

• Status information for the compile and execute phases of the call, including any errors that occur
• The debug log content, including the output of any calls to the System.debug method (see Debug Log)
• The Apex stack trace of any uncaught code execution exceptions, including the class, method, and line number for each call stack element