Otdfbt

Can anyone explain why the following If statement does not work with multiple OR conditions. The goal is when this trigger runs, if the user's Id who is updating the record is not equal to a specific Id, then an error is thrown. The If clause works only when I compare the current user's Id with a single specific Id.

 String currentUserId = UserInfo.getUserId();

 if (currentUserId != 'XXXXXXXXX' || currentUserId != 'YYYYYYYYY' || currentUserId != 'ZZZZZZZZZ') 
 Trigger.new[0].addError('Only specific users are able to change the Account Classification Field'); 
 

EDIT FYI: I know I can accomplish this by using the following code, but I am curious as to why the OR operator is not working as I had expected.

 if (currentUserId != 'XXXXXXXXX') 
 if (currentUserId != 'YYYYYYYYY') 
 if (currentUserId != 'ZZZZZZZZZ') 
 Trigger.new[0].addError('Only specific users are able to change the Account Classification Field'); 
 
 
 

"OR" means "true if either value is true". If the ID is "XXXXXXXXX", for example, it will NOT be "YYYYYYYYY", therefore OR will result in a true value. You need to use "AND" (&&) instead, meaning "true only if both values are true."

Side note: It's not enough to just put an error on Trigger.new[0]; there may be multiple records in the trigger context, and this can result in a "too many retries" error during bulk data operations.

@sfdcfox is correct, Although I would do a

!( (new List<String>'XXXX','YYYY','ZZZZ').contains(currentUserId) )

Chaining a bunch of Logical OR's gets messy, especially if you need to add to the list in the future. I would make a public static variable of it to describe the classes permission if you plan on using that permission group you have there in more than one place.

In programming,

if (currentUserId != 'XXXXXXXXX' || currentUserId != 'YYYYYYYYY' || currentUserId != 'ZZZZZZZZZ') 

means that, if at least any of the 3 conditions is TRUE, the full expression is TRUE.

For a currentUserId='XXXXXXXXX', the expression is evaluated as

currentUserId != 'XXXXXXXXX' ==> FALSE

currentUserId != 'YYYYYYYYY' ==> TRUE

currentUserId != 'ZZZZZZZZZ' ==> TRUE

So, for currentUserId='XXXXXXXXX', it adds the error Only specific users are able to change the Account Classification Field, which is not desirable.

It can be explained by De Morgan's Law.

Not (A and B) is the same as Not A or Not B.

Not (A or B) is the same as Not A and Not B.

In your case,

currentUserId NOT ('XXXXXXXXX' OR 'YYYYYYYYY' OR 'ZZZZZZZZZ')

which can be written as

currentUserId NOT 'XXXXXXXXX' AND currentUserId NOT 'YYYYYYYYY' AND currentUserId NOT 'ZZZZZZZZZ'

While your logic will always return true because the value is always not one of the three values, correcting this code by inverting || to && would be missing the point that there is a better way to filter logic so it is specific to a subset of users. The two most ideal ways to code for this so that it is configurable are Custom Permissions and Hierarchy Custom Settings.

Custom Permissions

1. Create a Custom Permission named e.g. CanDoOperationX.


2. Create a Permission Set which contains only this permission.


3. Assign this Permission Set to each User in your whitelist.


4. Update your condition to check FeatureManagement.checkPermission('CanDoOperationX')
   

Hierarchy Custom Setting

This option doesn't make as much sense unless you have other user specific overrides for this functionality, but it is certainly viable.

1. Create a Hierarchy Custom Setting named e.g. MyTriggerSettings.


2. Add a Checkbox field named e.g. Can_Do_Operation_X__c.


3. Create a new record in this setting for each User in your whitelist.


4. Update your condition to check $MyTriggerSettings__c.getInstance().Can_Do_Operation_X__c.