Read a value from a linked object

Copy a field from a linked object using apiSearchBySIDs.

Use case

Your object links to another object, and you want a column that holds a field of that linked object (for example its category), kept up to date on each save.

The linked object's full data is not part of the object being saved, so you look it up by its system object id with the apiSearchBySIDs helper.

Snippet

console.info("Fetching the linked object by sid");

if (!objNew.linked) {
    return "No linked object provided.";
}

// The link field carries the linked object's _system_object_id.
const sid = objNew.linked._system_object_id;
const found = await apiSearchBySIDs(sid);

if (found && found.length > 0) {
    // The fields of the linked object are under its own object type key.
    const objecttype = found[0]._objecttype;
    return found[0][objecttype].category;
}

return "Linked object not found.";

Notes

• apiSearchBySIDs(sids, mode) accepts a single id or an array, and the formats long, short, long_inheritance, full, standard. It returns an array of objects (empty if none match).

• The snippet runs in an async function, so await works directly. You can also use fetch to call an external API the same way.

• console.info(...) output goes to the server log; use log.push(...) to attach data to the debug event instead.