Salesforce Platform Developer Practice Exam

To ensure Social Security Numbers and Phone Numbers match a specific pattern, which function should be used?

1. REGEX

2. EXPRMATCH

3. ISNUMBER

4. PRIORVALUE

The correct answer is: REGEX

The REGEX function is designed to match strings against a specified pattern using regular expressions, which are sequences of characters that define a search pattern. This makes it particularly useful for validating formats of specific types of data, such as Social Security Numbers and Phone Numbers, that have established patterns. When you want to ensure that a Social Security Number follows the format "###-##-####" or a Phone Number follows a specific format like "(###) ###-####", REGEX allows you to create corresponding regular expressions that precisely define what valid data should look like. The function evaluates whether the input string matches the defined regular expression and returns a Boolean value, facilitating validation tasks effectively. Other options do not cater to pattern matching. For instance, ISNUMBER is used to check if a value is numeric, which doesn't assist in validating the specific string format of Social Security Numbers or Phone Numbers. Similarly, PRIORVALUE is related to tracking field changes in Salesforce and isn't appropriate for pattern validation. EXPRMATCH isn’t a standard function recognized within the Salesforce platform for this purpose, making REGEX the clear choice for validating specific data formats.