When the standard Name field of an object is set as Text, it shows a weird behavior if left empty. It is not possible to mark it as required or non-required, but when editing a record from its standard edit page, the field is required:
No problem so far: the field is required in any case. The problem arises when it comes to insertion from code. If we insert a record from code:
CustomObject__c r = new CustomObject__c();
insert r;
… we get no error. Instead, the record is inserted with the short, 15-character Id copied into its Name field. What I would expect is an exception with the same error that we've got in the standard edit page.
This problem does not occur with custom fields: if a custom field is marked as required, it will be so both in the standard edit page and from code.
I did not find any mention to this on documentation. Is this behavior new in Spring'14? Has any of you found this same problem before?
Best Answer
It has always worked with this. I've been writing Salesforce code over 3 years now. If you don't give it a name through code, it defaults it to it's ID.
The UI will require a user to input a String, but why does the code really need to force it to? The developer is the one creating the code and so then knows what should be acceptable.
If you really want to force the developer to not leave the name blank, create a validation rule. Have the validation rule check to see if the Id and Name field are the same, or the Name is blank. In either of those cases have it error.
TL;DR; This functionality has been around for years. Nothing has changed.