Normalize data with Apex

Question

All

I am just unable to get around my head with the issue, so posting is here for some help.

I have a object that contains the following

• Product Id
• CustomFieldName
• CustomFieldValue

and for the same product Id there are multiple enteries.Example:

ProductId-----CustomFieldName---CustomFieldValue

111111111-----firstName---------TestUser

111111111-----lastName----------TestFUser

111111111-----phoneNumber-------1243

222111111-----firstName---------AnotherTestUser

222111111-----phoneNumber-------5243

I want to normalize the data, in another object:

ProductId-----firstName---------lastName------phoneNumber

111111111-----TestUser----------TestFUser-----1243

222111111-----AnotherTestUser---NULL----------5243

I tried normalizing it with Maps in for loop, but the code did not work for me. I cannot paste the code but here is the high level

Define a Map
//mapAttributes has the non-normalized data

Map<Id, Map<String, String>> mapme = new Map<Id, Map<String, String>>();
Map<String, String> tryme; 
for (String a: mapAttributes.keySet())
{
    tryme = new Map<String, String>();   
    tryme.put(mapAttributes.get(a).CustomFieldName, mapAttributes.get(a).CustomFieldValue);
    mapme.put(mapAttributes.get(a).Id, tryme);
}

The outcome of the code is that the "tryme" looks like a reference and all the products have the same first,lastname and phone number...

I am not sure how can I normalize the data. The solution was so easy in my head, but in practicality is not working.

Any other approach of solving is appreciated as well.

I want to solve it in Salesforce Apex, can someone please help

Answer 1

A lot depends how your source data structure looks like.

List<String> lines = new List<String>{
    '111111111-----firstName---------TestUser',
    '111111111-----lastName----------TestFUser',
    '111111111-----phoneNumber-------1243',
    '222111111-----firstName---------AnotherTestUser',
    '222111111-----phoneNumber-------5243'
};
    
Map<String, Map<String, String>> collated = new Map<String, Map<String, String>>();
for(String l : lines){
    List<String> columns = l.split('\\-+'); // split by "-", treat multiple as one
    String key = columns[0];
    if(collated.containsKey(key)){
        collated.get(key).put(columns[1], columns[2]);
    } else {
        collated.put(key, new Map<String, String>{columns[1] => columns[2]});
    }
}

System.debug(JSON.serializePretty(collated));

gives

{
  "222111111" : {
    "phoneNumber" : "5243",
    "firstName" : "AnotherTestUser"
  },
  "111111111" : {
    "phoneNumber" : "1243",
    "lastName" : "TestFUser",
    "firstName" : "TestUser"
  }
}