Vertex (vrtx)

Vertex is a superset of the Apex language that compiles to Apex code. Vertex enhances the quality of life when writing Apex by adding modern language constructs, but still supporting all Apex features.

• Installing
• Getting Started
• Building your first Vertex file
• Usage
• Commands

Installing

For the latest stable version:

npm install -g vrtx

Getting Started

To set up your project to be able to compile Vertex code, you first need to place a vrtxconfig.json file at the root of your project. This configuration file contains information the compiler will use to translate Vertex files into Apex files. Here is an example:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "targetApiVersion": 48.0,
    "rootDir": "src",
    "targetDir": "lib"
  }
}

• The targetApiVersion defines which API Version the cls-meta.xml will be used for the generated Apex files
• The rootDir defines the directory for the source of the .vrtx files
• The targetDir defines the directory in which the Apex files will be placed

Building your first Vertex file

To demonstrate some of the capabilities of Vertex lets walk through an example and introduce some of the features.

First, in your root directory, create a Greeter.vrtx file that looks as follows:

Remember to keep your root directory out of a place where it will be pushed to the org OR add it to the .forceignore file as we can't push Vertex files to the Salesforce org

public class Greeter {
  public Greeter(String person) {
    System.debug('Hello ' + person + '!');
  }
}

Compiling your code

You will notice that the source code looks exactly like Apex, since Vertex is a superset of Apex, all Apex code is automatically supported.

To translate your Vertex code to Apex at your command line run:

vrtx build

After running the build command a new Greeter.cls and a Greeter.cls-meta.xml are generated inside of the target directory specified in the configuration file.

The compiler also makes sure that the generated code is formatted appropriately, by running Prettier on the source code.

Optional Parameters

Now lets take advantage of the things that Vertex offers. Let's start by modifying the Greeter.vrtx to use optional parameters:

public class Greeter {
    public Greeter(String person, [String greeting]) {
        if (greeting == null) {
            greeting = 'Hello';
        }
        System.debug(greeting + ' ' + person + '!');
    }
}

Notice the parameter between the [ ], this syntax represents optional parameters, so you can choose to either pass in or ignore:

Greeter myGreeter = new Greeter('World!');
// OR
Greeter myGreeter = new Greeter('World!', 'Hello');

You can combine formal (non-optional) parameters and optional parameters, and you can have as many formal and optional parameters as you want.

Null Coalesce

Notice the null check we need to do in order to make sure that our string is correctly formed. Luckily Vertex vastly simplifies null checks by providing the null coalesce operator ??. This operator returns the left-most non-null value.

public class Greeter {
    public Greeter(String person, [String greeting]) {
        greeting = greeting ?? 'Hello';
        System.debug(greeting + ' ' + person + '!');
    }
}

Default parameter values

Even with the null coalesce our code is still doing a null check, which we can simplify even further. Vertex removes the need for that check by allowing you to set default parameter values with your optional parameters:

public class Greeter {
    public Greeter(String person, [String greeting = 'Hello']) {
        System.debug(greeting + ' ' + person + '!');
    }
}

String templates

Another improvement we can make to our code is to how we are building the message within the System.debug call. Vertex allows you to use string templates to help you out when building complex strings:

public class Greeter {
    public Greeter(String person, [String greeting = 'Hello']) {
        System.debug(`${greeting} ${person}!`);
    }
}

Example Code

The example code is fully available here.

Usage

$ npm install -g vrtx
$ vrtx COMMAND
running command...
$ vrtx (-v|--version|version)
vrtx/0.6.0 win32-x64 node-v12.17.0
$ vrtx --help [COMMAND]
USAGE
  $ vrtx COMMAND
...

Commands

• vrtx build
• vrtx help [COMMAND]

vrtx build

Transcompiles Vertex code into Apex.

USAGE
  $ vrtx build

OPTIONS
  -h, --help  show CLI help

EXAMPLE
  $ vrtx build

See code: src\commands\build.ts

vrtx help [COMMAND]

display help for vrtx

USAGE
  $ vrtx help [COMMAND]

ARGUMENTS
  COMMAND  command to show help for

OPTIONS
  --all  see all commands in CLI

See code: @oclif/plugin-help