[SalesForce] way to upgrade api versions of all apex classes without manually updating each of them

I have an org with hundreds of apex classes, all of which have api versions ranging between 30-37. Is there an easy way to bring them all to the latest api version at once without resorting to manual updates?

Best Answer

WARNING

First of all, I would like to say, do this only if you are certain you have sufficient unit tests to catch anything that might break. Also, make certain you back up your code. I cannot stress this strongly enough.

You can do this pretty easily with any IDE, Salesforce DX, workbench, etc. The general process is either two or three steps.

First, download the files you want to update the API version for. Next, use a tool to "Find and Replace in Files". All major IDEs have this feature. Replace <apiVersion>.+</apiVersion> (a regular expression match) to the desired version. Third, if your IDE doesn't automatically deploy the changes, deploy the changes back to the server.

Force.com IDE (Search > File)

Edit: 2020 Edition

You can use VS Code to do the same thing. Click on Edit > Replace in files, and use the Regular Expression option (far right button next to Search), and you can do this with VS Code. You need to perform a SFDX deploy afterwards.

You can also do this with sed/awk and other *NIX (Unix, Linux) shell tools, too. Check the online documentation for your preferred tool.

Related Solutions

[SalesForce] Access salesforce API version of a class in Apex

You can perform a SoQL query on the ApexClass object:

ApexClass apexClass = [
  SELECT ApiVersion
  FROM ApexClass
  WHERE Name = 'MyClassName'
];

System.debug(apexClass.ApiVersion);
//27.0

Don't worry, the records will be visible without needing SeeAllData=true

[SalesForce] How to update out-of-date API versions

I think the way that I would approach this is one at a time, updating each class one by one to the latest API version and resolving issues as they arise. I'm guessing that the biggest changes you will face will be in the following areas:

Test data isolation - After (something like) version 24.0 of the API, tests no longer see all data in the database. If any of your unit tests rely on data in the instance, they'll likely start failing.
Inability to include both tests and code in the same class. In the latest API, tests must be in their own class and won't compile if they are included in a class that is not marked as @isTest at the class declaration
Make sure with or without sharing is explicitly declared on each class as what is implied without this keyword has changed subtly over the API versions.

I'm sure there is more but that's how I would approach it.