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

[peterraeves]

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

[Hitesh Patel3]

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

Regards,

Hitesh

[KM SN]

Hey Chuck ,

Thanks for your valuable insights , may i know conclusion that which we should use while creating records through scripts and why that only and why not another?

[harleyl]

I played around with this today because I wanted to verify default values were NOT set when using initialize.  Well - that is not a true statement...once update() is done, defaults ARE set so I'm not as concerned with using initialize() any longer.

initialize(): Creates an empty record suitable for population before an insert.  Upon update, default values are set unless otherwise populated in the GlideRecord.

newRecord(); Creates a GlideRecord, set the default values for the fields and assign a unique id to the record.

If you run the below code, you will see the default value for urgency - is you uncomment the update, you will see the urgency is defaulted using initialize or newRecord.

var inc = new GlideRecord('incident');
inc.initialize();
//inc.update();
gs.print('Opened at: ' + inc.opened_at.getDisplayValue() + ' Urgency:' + inc.urgency);

var inc = new GlideRecord('incident');
inc.newRecord();
//inc.update();
gs.print('Opened at: ' + inc.opened_at.getDisplayValue() + ' Urgency:' + inc.urgency);

[Chuck Tomasi]

Yes, you will get the default values from initialize() when the record is submitted. The point of the difference is that you will NOT get them before update. newRecord() populates the values right away and you can use them BEFORE you submit.

Example:

var incGr = new GlideRecord('incident');
incGr.initialize();
gs.info(incGr.number); // nothing displayed

versus

var incGr = new GlideRecord('incident');
incGr.newRecord();
gs.info(incGr.number); // displays the next number

[harleyl]

Yes - that is the point I was making.  What was unclear is what I highlighted:

initialize(): Creates an empty record suitable for population before an insert.  Upon update, default values are set unless otherwise populated in the GlideRecord.

Thanks for the follow up!