How to convert Explicitly in Salesfore SOQL - Invalid bind expression type of SOBJECT

Question

Is there a way I can do this in SOQL?

(this is a sql statement)

Convert(varchar(35),[FieldName1])

I'm trying to do a SOQL WHERE statement to compare an account and opportunity.

This is What I want:

SELECT Convert(VarChar(35),FieldName1), FieldName2

From tbl

where FieldName1 = fieldName2

I figure this is what I need since this is the error message I'm getting:

Invalid bind expression type of SOBJECT:Account for column of type String

Answer 1

SOQL does not have the capability to perform comparisons where both the left hand side and the right hand side are fields, so you will not be able to do this in pure SOQL. If this is a one-off query (i.e. you don't have to be constructing queries like this on the fly) then you could define a formula field which is like

IF(Field1__c=Field2__c,1,0)

or maybe if the types are different

IF(TEXT(Field1__c)=Field2__c,1,0)

and then your SOQL would be

SELECT Field1__c WHERE MyFormulaField__c=1

There are other, more complex ways to do this in Apex if you need to generalize it, but the formula field method is the simplest way that yields the simplest query structure.

Also, you can't convert anything to VARCHAR in SOQL. You have to do the conversion either in the formula field as I suggested above, or after the fact in Apex or whatever language from which you're issuing the query.