Business Central — CLEAR vs INIT function

Doufu
1 min readMay 11, 2022

What is the difference between CLEAR and INIT functions? Clear(Record) vs Record.Init()

CLEAR function

When used on a variable, i.e. Clear(SomeVariable), it simply clears the value that is stored to its default state. For example if it is a number variable, it will be set to 0 (zero), a date variable to undefined date (0D) and so on. Clear can be used on a Guid data type, and in this case sets the GUID to all zeroes.

When used on a record, i.e. Clear(Rec), or an array, all elements are cleared. It resets all the filters, resets the primary key and all fields will be initialized based on the InitValue property. If ChangeCompany is used, it will reset back to the original company.

INIT function

Used for initializing a new record in a table for insertion. It will assign default values to all the fields in the record, including the SystemId field.

Both of these functions might seem to be doing the same thing, setting fields to their default state, but they are used under different circumstances for different purposes.

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Originally published at http://doufu.wordpress.com on May 11, 2022.

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