Method Overloading with Record and RecordRef in AL for Business Central 2025 Wave 1

Introduction

With Business Central 2025 Wave 1 (BC 26), Microsoft introduced significant improvements to the AL language. One of these enhancements is method overloading combined with implicit conversion between Record and RecordRef. These improvements simplify development, providing greater flexibility and cleaner code.

In this post, we’ll explore practical patterns and best practices for method overloading between Record and RecordRef in AL 15.0, using standard tables like Customer and Vendor.

PS> Get-BlogPostStructure -TableOfContents

• Introduction
• Method Overloading with Different Records
  • Explanation
• Generic Procedure with RecordRef
  • Explanation
• Design Patterns and Usage
  • When to Use Method Overloading
  • When to Use RecordRef
  • Potential Pitfalls
• Conclusion

Method Overloading with Different Records

Here’s an example demonstrating overloading procedures using different strongly-typed records:

codeunit 50100 RecordHandler
{
    procedure Archive(var Customer: Record Customer)
    begin
        Customer.Blocked := Customer.Blocked::All;
        Customer.Modify();
    end;

    procedure Archive(var Vendor: Record Vendor)
    begin
        Vendor.Blocked := Vendor.Blocked::All;
        Vendor.Modify();
    end;

    procedure ArchiveRecord(var RecRef: RecordRef)
    begin
        case RecRef.Number of
            Database::Customer:
                Archive(RecRef);
            Database::Vendor:
                Archive(RecRef);
            else
                Error('Unsupported table.');
        end;
    end;
}

Explanation

• Overloaded Archive Procedures: Clearly defined logic specific to each record type (Customer and Vendor).
• Generic ArchiveRecord Procedure: Accepts a RecordRef and dispatches to the correct strongly-typed overload using implicit conversion.

Generic Procedure with RecordRef

This example demonstrates a generic procedure accepting a RecordRef, called with different record types:

codeunit 50101 GenericHandler
{
    procedure LogRecordDetails(var RecRef: RecordRef)
    var
        FieldRef: FieldRef;
        FieldText: Text;
        i: Integer;
    begin
        for i := 1 to RecRef.FieldCount do begin
            FieldRef := RecRef.FieldIndex(i);
            FieldText := Format(FieldRef.Value);
            Message('%1: %2', FieldRef.Name, FieldText);
        end;
    end;

    procedure LogDetailsFromCustomer()
    var
        Cust: Record Customer;
    begin
        Cust.Get('10000');
        LogRecordDetails(Cust);
    end;

    procedure LogDetailsFromVendor()
    var
        Vend: Record Vendor;
    begin
        Vend.Get('20000');
        LogRecordDetails(Vend);
    end;
}

Explanation

• LogRecordDetails: Generic logging mechanism using RecordRef, suitable for any record type.
• Calling Procedures: Demonstrates calling generic procedures with specific records (Customer and Vendor).

Design Patterns and Usage

When to Use Method Overloading

• Multiple Record Types: When similar business logic applies across different table types, use overloading to keep your code clear and maintainable.
• Type Safety: Maintain strong typing by creating overloads for each specific record.

When to Use RecordRef

• Generic Functionality: For operations that must handle multiple or unknown tables at runtime (logging, auditing, generic UI actions).
• Dynamic Processing: When fields or table structure are determined at runtime.

Potential Pitfalls

• Always validate RecordRef table types before performing conversions.
• Avoid ambiguous overloads; make your method signatures clearly distinct.

Conclusion

Using method overloading and RecordRef strategically enhances code readability, maintainability, and robustness. With these techniques, AL developers can write flexible, high-quality code that leverages Business Central’s powerful new capabilities.

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