Converting 15 Character Salesforce Record ID to 18 Characters

Last Updated on July 12, 2020 by Sudhir

As you all know, Salesforce used to use a 15 character case-sensitive record ID to uniquely identify any record in the org. But over time, they transitioned over to an 18 character case-insensitive ID, but there are areas where you will still only get the 15 character ID. For example, in reports.

Best Practice

Always use the 18 character ID, especially if dealing with data manipulation.

The logic to convert a 15 character ID to 18 characters is not complex. Below are the steps to perform, followed by code samples in Apex and JavaScript.

Consider the 15 character ID 0013k00002crTPa.

  1. Divide the 15 characters into 3 sets of 5 characters each: 0013k 00002 crTPa
  2. Invert the characters in each set: k3100 20000 aPTrc
  3. For each character in a given inverted set, assign a value of 1 if that character is an uppercase character, 0 otherwise: 00000 00000 01100
  4. We now have a binary representation of each set. Combine each seat to it’s decimal equivalent: 0 0 12
  5. Now construct an array of 32 values containing the sequence A-Z and 0-5:
    • A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 0 1 2 3 4 5
  6. Use the decimal number from each set as an index and choose the corresponding character/number from the A-Z 0-5 list above staring with A = 0, B = 1, … 5 = 31:

    • 0 = A    8 = I   16 = Q   24 = Y
      1 = B    9 = J   17 = R   25 = Z
      2 = C   10 = K   18 = S   26 = 0
      3 = D   11 = L   19 = T   27 = 1
      4 = E   12 = M   20 = U   28 = 2
      5 = F   13 = N   21 = V   29 = 3
      6 = G   14 = O   22 = W   30 = 4
      7 = H   15 = P   23 = X   31 = 5
  7. Using the decimal representation of each set, and taking the corresponding alpha-numeric character, 0 0 12 becomes A A M
  8. Now take those 3 letters and append to the end of the 15 character ID to get the 18 character ID of 0013k00002crTPaAAM.

JavaScript: 

function convertId(input) {

    var output;
    if (input.length == 15) {
        var addon = "";
        for (var block = 0; block < 3; block++) {
            var loop = 0;
            for (var position = 0; position < 5; position++) {
                var current = input.charAt(block * 5 + position);
                if (current >= "A" && current <= "Z") loop += 1 << position;
            }
            addon += "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ012345".charAt(loop);
        }
        output = (input + addon);
    } else {
        alert("Error : " + input + " isn't 15 characters (" + input.length + ")");
        return;
    }
    return output;
}

Apex:

Turning a 15 character ID into an 18 character ID is pretty straight forward. It’s almost comical:

String fifteen = '0013k00002crTPa';
Id eighteen = fifteen;

System.debug('15 char: ' + fifteen); //outputs 0013k00002crTPa
System.debug('18 char: ' + eighteen); // outputs 0013k00002crTPaAAM

If you want to make that into a utility method, simply do the following:

public static Id convertId15To18(String fifteen) {
    return fifteen;
}