Submitform(form) vs Patch

[FelipeCaru]

Hello all,

I have a question regarding submitForm and Patch. Is there any substancial difference between the two (performance, for example)? If my app has data in an Excel sheet, about 500 lines or so, in which from the 10 columns (more or less), only 4 or 5 are edited by users, would it be better to use one over the other?

[RandyHayes · Accepted solution]

@FelipeCaru 

I believe the answer is - indirectly.

In general the submit form function will do very similar actions as your Patch.  The biggest difference is, a Form has a lot of overhead.  It is built to handle many different variations of data and field types.  Due to this, there is more processing that has to occur for all of the conditions to happen.  For the most part, it is not noticeable, but technically, there is a big difference between a function that handles many variations as opposed to a Patch that is very specific.

Your situation may vary.  Choosing one over the other is a choice of function in many cases as opposed to performance.  Since the Form handles so many aspects for you - if you need those aspects to be handled rather than designing formulas for them, then use the Form.  If you have very specific data and it's not a hassle to do, then use a Patch.

[FelipeCaru]

@RandyHayes 

Thank you very much for the answer. I think I'll keep to form since it is what works for me and since I have different fields and whatnot (: