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Salesforce's strongly-typed programming language for building business logic on the Force.com platform.
Apex is a strongly-typed, object-oriented programming language developed by Salesforce, introduced in 2007 as part of the Force.com platform. Syntactically similar to Java, Apex was purpose-built for executing business logic in the Salesforce cloud environment, with native support for database operations through SOQL (Salesforce Object Query Language) and SOSL (Salesforce Object Search Language). Apex code runs on Salesforce's multi-tenant servers and is subject to governor limits — strict runtime constraints on queries, DML operations, CPU time, and heap size — that ensure no single tenant monopolizes shared resources.
The language powers triggers (database event handlers), batch processing jobs, web services, Lightning component controllers, and complex workflow automation within the Salesforce ecosystem. Apex is used by organizations across every industry that relies on Salesforce for CRM, sales automation, customer service, and custom business applications. The development ecosystem includes the Salesforce CLI, VS Code extensions, scratch orgs for isolated development, and the Salesforce DX toolchain for source-driven development and CI/CD.
Testing is enforced at the platform level — Salesforce requires a minimum 75% code coverage for production deployments. The language has evolved to include features like asynchronous processing (Queueable, Schedulable, Batchable interfaces), platform events for event-driven architecture, and custom metadata types for configuration. With Salesforce serving over 150,000 organizations globally, Apex remains one of the most commercially significant proprietary programming languages.
Apex changes can violate governor limits, break trigger execution order, or corrupt data across an entire Salesforce org. A SOQL query modification might exceed the 100-query limit in a batch context, while trigger logic changes can create infinite loops.
Comparing Apex files is essential during deployment reviews because Salesforce enforces code coverage requirements and changes to shared utility classes can cascade through dozens of dependent triggers and controllers.
UtraDiff compares Apex files with Apex syntax highlighting, covering SOQL queries, trigger handlers, and Salesforce annotations. Side-by-side view aligns class methods and trigger definitions across panels. The whitespace ignore toggle filters IDE-induced formatting differences.
Alt+Arrow navigation jumps between changed methods. Language-aware tokenization distinguishes SOQL inline queries from Apex logic changes, making governor limit-affecting modifications like query-inside-loop patterns immediately visible.
Supported extensions: .cls .trigger