Returning complex types

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Admins, makers, marketers, or analysts, automatically Feb 1, 2021 Apr 1, 2021

Business value

You can now simplify your AL code and return complex types, instead of passing these in the method parameters.

Feature details

You can now return variables of complex types.

As an example, the following method will take a name and return the first customer record that matches the name. Notice how the signature specifies the return type at the end of the procedure declaration, and how the procedure exits by returning the found customer record.

procedure GetCustomerByName(Name: Text): record Customer;
var
    Customer: record Customer;
begin
    Customer.SetFilter(Name, '@' + Name + '*');
    Customer.FindFirst();
    exit(Customer);
end;

You can use this new feature to call members directly on the returned variable—for example, in expressions. As an example, you could use the above in an IF statement such as "if GetCustomerByName('SomeName')."Balance (LCY)" > 0 then"

Read more about this new feature: Return of the Complex Type

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See also

AL Complex Types (docs)