Choose where you’d like to start

Fetch records

Overview
Return
Syntax
Things to keep in mind
Examples
Limitations
Related Links

Note: This task is applicable only to Zoho Creator.

Overview

The fetch record deluge task retrieves records from a specified form, when a given criteria is met.

The criteria is mandatory.

See this page to learn about fetching all values of a field in a collection.

See this page to learn about fetching a specified field's value from the first record in the collection.

Note:

The fetched records may appear to be sorted based on "added time" (oldest first) system field. However, there is no guarantee to this order and there is no guarantee that the order will remain constant over time. If you are particular about the sequence of the records, it is advisable to use the sort param.

Return

This task returns a collection of records.

Syntax

To fetch records which meet a criteria

<variable> = <form_link_name> [<criteria>];

To fetch records which meet a criteria, and sort them in ascending order based on a field

<variable> = <form_link_name> [<criteria>] sort by <field_link_name>;

To fetch records which meet a criteria, and sort them in descending order based on a field

<variable> = <form_link_name> [<criteria>] sort by <field_link_name> desc;

To fetch records within a specified range, which meet a criteria

<variable> = <form_link_name> [<criteria>] range from <start_index> to <end_index>;

To fetch records within a specified range, which meet a criteria, and sort them in ascending order based on a field

<variable> = <form_link_name> [<criteria>] sort by <field_link_name> range from <start_index> to <end_index>;

To fetch records within a specified range, which meet a criteria, and sort them in descending order based on a field

<variable> = <form_link_name> [<criteria>] sort by <field_link_name> desc range from <start_index> to <end_index>;

Parameter

Description

Collection variable holding the collection of records.

<form_link_name>

Link name of the form from which the records will be fetched.

Criteria based on which records will be fetched.

sort by <field_link_name>

Link name of the field based on which records will be sorted.

Note: A lookup field will sort the records based on the record ID.

range from <start_index> to <end_index>

Records included in the specified index range will be fetched.

<start_index>

Start index of the range of records to be fetched.

Either 0 or 1 may be specified as the index number of the first record when used in <start_index> param.
If 0 is the specified start index, the last index is numbered from 0. If 1, or any number greater than 1, is the specified start index, the last index is numbered from 1.

E.g. for records A (index 1), B (index 2), C (index 3), D (index 4), and E (index 5):

Range from 0 to 3 will fetch A, B, C, D
Range from 1 to 4 will fetch A, B, C, D
Range from 2 to 4 will fetch B, C, D

<end_index>

Last index of the range of records to be fetched, inclusive.

Negative index values will result in a runtime error.

Things to keep in mind

If you wish to fetch all records of the specified form, use the following script as criteria:
[ID != 0]

It is advisable to fetch all records only when absolutely needed. Fetching all records generates a load resulting in performance issues.
If you wish to use the "sort" and "range" parameters together, the "sort" parameter should be followed by the "range" parameter.
If specifying the Name or Address field in the criteria, it is mandatory to specify their subfields as shown below:
- Name.first_name
- Name.last_name
- Name.prefix
- Name.suffix
- Address.address_line_1
- Address.address_line_2
- Address.district_city
- Address.state_province
- Address.postal_Code
- Address.country
- Address.longitude
- Address.latitude
  
  If more than one Name fields are present in the form, the link names of the subsequent name sub fields will be appended by a number starting from 1. So, if we take the example of the subfield <field>.prefix, the link name of the first such field will be <field>.prefix, the link name of the second such field will be <field>.prefix1, the link name of the third such field will be <field>.prefix2, and so on. The same logic applies to the Address subfields.
The Name and Address fields do not work with the sort by param

This task can be used in the following events

When a record is Created
On Load	Yes
On Validate	Yes
On Success	Yes
On User input	Yes
Subform on add row	Yes
Subform on delete row	Yes
When a record is Created or Edited
On Load	Yes
On Validate	Yes
On Success	Yes
On User input	Yes
Subform on add row	Yes
Subform on delete row	Yes
When a record is Edited
On Load	Yes
On Validate	Yes
On Success	Yes
On User input	Yes
Subform on add row	Yes
Subform on delete row	Yes
When a record is Deleted
On Validate	Yes
On Success	Yes
Other workflow events
On a scheduled date	Yes
During approval process	Yes
During payment process	Yes
In a Custom Function	Yes
In an Action item in report	Yes

Examples

1) The following snippet can be used to extract specified field value from the most recently added record.

EmployeeDetails = Employees [ ID != 0] sort by Added_Time desc;
info EmployeeDetails.<field_link_name>; // picks up the first record from the collection

2) The following script fetches all records which have the "age" field value as "25", from the Employees form.

EmployeeDetails = Employees [ age == "25" ];

3) The following script fetches all records which have the "name" field value as "Edward Thomas" or "Robert Frost", from the Poets_Form form.

poets = {"Edward Thomas", "Robert Frost"};
Poet_Details = Poets_Form [ name in poets ];

4)The following script fetches all records which have the "name" field value as "Jon Berryman". The name value is then updated to "John Berryman".

EmployeeDetails = Employee[name == "Jon Berryman"];
for each employee in EmployeeDetails
{
employee.name = "John Berryman" ;
}

5) The following script fetches all records(because no record will have ID as 0) and sorts them by their Names. The Range is specified as 0 to 2, hence only the first 3 records will be fetched.

EmployeeDetails = Employee[ID != 0] sort by name range from 0 to 2;

Limitations due to behavioral updates

The following limitations are applicable to this task. To know about more such limitations, you can check this page.

Sort using multi select fields: Records fetched using this task cannot be sorted using Multi Select, Multi Select lookup, Existing Subform, Inline Subform, or Check Box fields. For example, the below line of code will throw an error.
```
variable = Form1[ID !=0] sort by checkbox_field ;
```
Sort using composite fields: Records fetched using this task cannot be sorted using the Name and Address composite fields and Added_Location and Modified_Location composite system fields. For example, the below line of code will throw an error.
```
variable = Form1[ID !=0] sort by name ;
```
Fetch records criteria restriction: The left expression of the fetch records task criteria with the format <parent field>.<child field> cannot contain the following field types i.e., they cannot contain the format as MultiSelect.MultiSelect.
- parent field - Multi Select Lookup, Existing Subform, and Inline Subform
- child field - Multi Select field, Multi Select Lookup, Existing Subform, Inline Subform, Multi Select, and Check Box fields.
  For example, the below line of code will throw an error.
```
variable = Form1[multi_select_lookup_field.multiselect_field == {"Choice 1", "Choice 2"}] ;
```
  The following method is the best practice to achieve the use case:
```
fetchedIDs = Form2[multiselect_field IN {"Choice 1", "Choice 2"}].ID.getAll();

variable = Form1[multi_select_lookup_field in fetchedIDs];
```
Fetch records criteria restriction (using composite fields): The left and right expressions (operands) of the fetch records task criteria cannot contain the Name and Address composite fields and composite system fields such as Added_Location and Modified_Location. For example, the below lines of code will throw an error during script execution. This restriction applies only when the above-mentioned fields are present in the same form.
```
variable = Form[ Name == Name ];
```
```
variable = Form[ Address == Address ];
```
Fetch records criteria restriction (Multi Select and Single Select fields): A Multi Select field type cannot be compared with a single select field type in the left and right expressions (operands) of the fetch records task criteria i.e., the two operands cannot contain the following fields in each of the two field types.
- Multi Select field type - Multi Select Lookup, Existing Subform, Inline Subform, Multi Select, and Check Box fields.
- Single Select field type - Radio, Drop Down, Drop Down Lookup, and Radio Lookup fields.
  For example, the below lines of code will throw an error during script execution.
```
variable = Form[ MultiSelect == Radio ];
```
```
variable = Form[ MultiSelectLookup == SingleSelectLookup ];
```
Fetch records criteria restriction (Multi Select fields): The left and right expressions of the fetch records task criteria cannot contain the following Multi Select field types:
- Lookup (Multi Select)
- Existing Subform
- Inline Subform
- Check Box
  For example, the below lines of code will throw an error during script execution.
```
variable = Form[ MultiSelectLookup == MultiSelect ];
```
```
variable = Form[ MultSelectField1 == MultSelectField2 ];
```
```
variable = Form[ SubForm == SubForm ];
```
Operator-based criteria restriction: The left expressions of the fetch records task criteria cannot contain the following Multi Select field types and the right expressions cannot contain more than six elements in the list (here, arguments refer to choices related to the Multi Select fields).
- Multi Select
- Lookup (Multi Select)
- Existing Subform
- Inline Subform
- Check Box
  For example, the below line of code will throw an error.
```
rec = Form[ MultiSelect == {"Choice 1", "Choice 2", "Choice 3", "Choice 4", "Choice 5", "Choice 6", "Choice 7"} ];
```
```
rec = Form[ MultiSelect IN {"Choice 1", "Choice 2", "Choice 3", "Choice 4", "Choice 5", "Choice 6", "Choice 7"} ];
```
contains() function criteria restriction: Records fetched using the fetch records task cannot contain more than one searchString in the contains() function used as a criteria. This restriction is applicable when the criteria are specified for the following Creator fields:
- Multi Select
- Check Box
- Multi Select Lookup
- Subform
- SingleSelect_Lookup.MultiSelectField - when you've used a single select lookup field (dropdown or radio) that looks up data from a multi select field in the parent form.
  For example, the below line of code will throw an error during script execution since two searchStrings are specified in the criteria.
```
rec = Form[ MultiSelect.contains({"Choice 1", "Choice 2"}) ];
```
  The following method is the best practice to achieve the use case:
```
rec = Form[ MultiSelect.contains("Choice 1") && MultiSelect.contains("Choice 2")  ];
```

Deluge

The fastest programming language for developers