Hi,

Thank you for your question.

There is no ability to delete an Apex class in your Production project via the IDE.

This is the limitation of Salesforce.

Regards,

Kate

@Kate.Dulko and TWS team.

Did the answer of inability to delete a class has changed since 2016?
The other IDEs are doing this by updating %className%.cls-meta.xml file with <status>Deleted</status>

As of July 2018 I can't find the option to deploy only meta xml part of the class to an Org.

Hi Vsevolod,

Thank you for your post!

Now you can do this in The Welkin Suite IDE!

For this, please follow the next steps:

1. change the status in a cls-meta.xml file to the 'deleted' one and save these changes;
2. after this please open the menu Project -> Deploy to organization (I want to draw your attention that beginning from the upcoming version of the IDE this command will be present in the menu Deploy -> Deploy to Organization);
3. select the 'Use organization from the project' - this way you will deploy to the same org that is related to your current project;
4. in the list of files, please select the necessary Apex class file with the 'Overwrite' action and proceed the deployment process.

As a result of this actions, your Apex class would be deleted on your org.

Hope this would help.

If you would have any additional questions, please let us know - we'll be happy to assist.

Thank you,

Kate

Kate, for clarity sake:  you mean we need to create a project for the production org, and then deploy back to that same org?

Hi Michael,

Thank you for your question.

Yes, you can create a project related to your Production organization, and deploy to the same org using the 'Deploy to organization' feature.

This way destructive changes from your cls-meta.xml file will be applied.

Regards,

Kate

kate.dulko, on 25 Jul 2018 - 01:36 PM, said:

As a result of this actions, your Apex class would be deleted on your org.

 No, it won't, at least not always.
Scenario 1: you are deleting the test class that covers the class you want to delete. Then you need to do the same for the test class (same steps for deletion).
Scenario 2: you want to keep the test class that is covering your class, but remove a single test from it. Here you are bumping in an issue: if you trying to delete the class that is not covered, you are getting 75% coverage requirement error. If you are deploying the test class that still covering the class, you are getting the error 'class deleted'.
I do understand, that this is not IDE problem, but Salesforce methods of working, but I feel like the answer could be improved with the instruction on how to get it done.
Update: the July 25th release moved the deployed menu option from "Project" to the "Deploy" tab

Hi Vsevolod,

Thank you for your post with these notes!

Yes, when you delete an Apex Class, the necessary is to pay attention to a code coverage, since an organization requires to keep a code coverage not less than 75%. Also, this Apex class can cover or be covered by other ones, and this could lead to additional steps too.

In addition, there could be references to this class in other files so this should be taken into account also.

When all Salesforce conditions are provided, you can use the steps from my previous post to delete an Apex Class on a Production organization.

Regards,

Kate