What's the difference between GlideRecord.initialize() and GlideRecord.newRecord()?

peterraeves · ‎07-05-2016

Basically what the title says. What's the difference between those two functions?

Chuck Tomasi · ‎07-05-2016

Hi Peter,

Per the wiki...

initialize(): Creates an empty record suitable for population before an insert.
newRecord(); Creates a GlideRecord, set the default values for the fields and assign a unique id to the record.

Try these two in scripts background and you'll see that initialize gives no value to opened_at, whereas newRecord does.

var inc = new GlideRecord('incident');
inc.initialize();
gs.print(inc.opened_at.getDisplayValue());

var inc = new GlideRecord('incident');
inc.newRecord();
gs.print(inc.opened_at.getDisplayValue());

I have always trusted newRecord more since learning about this a few years ago.

Tim Owen · ‎12-20-2017

Chuck, do you have a video using newrecord() in a widget?

Chuck Tomasi · ‎12-21-2017

Hi Tim,

We covered initialize() vs. newRecord() on ep 29 of TechNow. There's no reason it shouldn't work in the server script of a widget.

Tim Owen · ‎12-21-2017

Thank you sir. I thought I remembered hearing this explained, but could not find it in the 100+(exaggeration) videos I watched on Service Portal.

Hitesh Patel3 · ‎08-29-2018

Thank you for the elaborated response Chuck! It was helpful.

Regards,

Hitesh

Chuck Tomasi · ‎09-04-2018

You are welcome. Thank you for using the community!