Realm Query Language

On this page

Overview

Expressions
Dot Notation
Subqueries
Operators
Comparison Operators
Logical Operators
String Operators
Aggregate Operators
Collection Operators
Sort, Distinct, Limit
Flexible Sync RQL Limitations
Unsupported Query Operators in Flexible Sync
Embedded or Linked Objects

Important

Flexible Sync does not support all the operators available in Realm Query Language. See Flexible Sync RQL Limitations for details.

Overview

Realm Query Language is a string-based query language to constrain searches when retrieving objects from a realm. SDK-specific methods pass queries to the Realm query engine, which retrives matching objects from the realm.

Queries evaluate a predicate for every object in the collection being queried. If the predicate resolves to true, Realm Database includes the object in the results collection.

You can use Realm Query Language in most Realm SDKs with your SDK's filter or query methods. The Swift SDK is the exception, as it uses the NSPredicate query API. Some SDKs also support idiomatic APIs for querying realms in their language.

For further reading on SDK-specific methods for querying realms, select the tab below for your SDK.

You can also use Realm Query Language to browse for data in Realm Studio.

Expressions

Filters consist of expressions in a predicate. An expression consists of one of the following:

The name of a property of the object currently being evaluated.
An operator and up to two argument expression(s). For example, in the expression A + B, the entirety of A + B is an expression, but A and B are also argument expressions to the operator +.
A value, such as a string ('hello') or a number (5).

"progressMinutes > 1 AND assignee == $0",
"Ali"

Dot Notation

When referring to an object property, you can use dot notation to refer to child properties of that object. You can even refer to the properties of embedded objects and relationships with dot notation.

For example, consider a query on an object with a workplace property that refers to a Workplace object. The Workplace object has an embedded object property, address. You can chain dot notations to refer to the zipcode property of that address:

workplace.address.zipcode == 10012

Subqueries

You can iterate through a collection property with another query using the SUBQUERY() predicate function. SUBQUERY() has the following signature:

SUBQUERY(<collection>, <variableName>, <predicate>)

collection: the name of the property to iterate through
variableName: a variable name of the current element to use in the subquery
predicate: a string that contains the subquery predicate. You can use the variable name specified by variableName to refer to the currently-iterated element.

A subquery iterates through the given collection and checks the given predicate against each object in the collection. The predicate may refer to the current iterated object with the variable name passed to SUBQUERY().

A subquery expression resolves to an array. Realm Database only supports the @count aggregate operator on this result. This allows you to count how many objects in the subquery input collection matched the predicate.

You can use the count of the subquery result as you would any other number in a valid expression. In particular, you can compare the count with a number literal (such as 0) or another property (such as quota).

Example

The following example shows two filters on a projects collection.

The first returns projects with tasks that have not been completed by a user named Alex.
The second returns the projects where the number of completed tasks is greater than or equal to the project's quota value.

  "SUBQUERY(tasks, $task, $task.isComplete == false AND $task.assignee == 'Alex').@count > 0"
  "SUBQUERY(tasks, $task, $task.isComplete == true).@count >= quota"

Note

About the Examples On This Page

The examples in this page use a simple data set for a task list app. The two Realm object types are Project and Task. A Task has a name, assignee's name, and completed flag. There is also an arbitrary number for priority -- higher is more important -- and a count of minutes spent working on it. A Project has zero or more Tasks and an optional quota for minimum number of tasks expected to be completed.

See the schema for these two classes, Project and Task, below:

Operators

There are several types of operators available to query a Realm collection. With these operators, you can:

Compare values
Perform logical evaluations
Compare string values
Aggregate collection properties
Evaluate sets
Sort and limit results

Comparison Operators

The most straightforward operation in a search is to compare values.

Important

Types Must Match

The type on both sides of the operator must be equivalent. For example, comparing an ObjectId with string will result in a precondition failure with a message like:

"Expected object of type object id for property 'id' on object of type
'User', but received: 11223344556677889900aabb (Invalid value)"

You can compare any numeric type with any other numeric type, including decimal, float, and Decimal128.

Operator	Description
`between`	Evaluates to `true` if the left-hand numerical or date expression is between or equal to the right-hand range. For dates, this evaluates to `true` if the left-hand date is within the right-hand date range.
`==`, `=`	Evaluates to `true` if the left-hand expression is equal to the right-hand expression.
`>`	Evaluates to `true` if the left-hand numerical or date expression is greater than the right-hand numerical or date expression. For dates, this evaluates to `true` if the left-hand date is later than the right-hand date.
`>=`	Evaluates to `true` if the left-hand numerical or date expression is greater than or equal to the right-hand numerical or date expression. For dates, this evaluates to `true` if the left-hand date is later than or the same as the right-hand date.
`in`	Evaluates to `true` if the left-hand expression is in the right-hand list or string.
`<`	Evaluates to `true` if the left-hand numerical or date expression is less than the right-hand numerical or date expression. For dates, this evaluates to `true` if the left-hand date is earlier than the right-hand date.
`<=`	Evaluates to `true` if the left-hand numeric expression is less than or equal to the right-hand numeric expression. For dates, this evaluates to `true` if the left-hand date is earlier than or the same as the right-hand date.
`!=`, `<>`	Evaluates to `true` if the left-hand expression is not equal to the right-hand expression.

Example

The following example uses the query engine's comparison operators to:

Find high priority tasks by comparing the value of the priority property value with a threshold number, above which priority can be considered high.
Find long-running tasks by seeing if the progressMinutes property is at or above a certain value.
Find unassigned tasks by finding tasks where the assignee property is equal to null.
Find tasks within a certain time range by finding tasks where the progressMinutes property is between two numbers.

  "priority > 5"
  "progressMinutes > 120"
  "assignee == nil"
  "progressMinutes BETWEEN { 30,60 }"

Logical Operators

You can make compound predicates using logical operators.

Operator	Description
`AND` `&&`	Evaluates to `true` if both left-hand and right-hand expressions are `true`.
`NOT` `!`	Negates the result of the given expression.
`OR` `\|\|`	Evaluates to `true` if either expression returns `true`.

Example

We can use the query language's logical operators to find all of Ali's completed tasks. That is, we find all tasks where the assignee property value is equal to 'Ali' AND the isComplete property value is true:

"assignee == 'Ali' AND isComplete == true"

String Operators

You can compare string values using these string operators. Regex-like wildcards allow more flexibility in search.

Note

You can use the following modifiers with the string operators:

[c] for case insensitivity.
```
"name CONTAINS[c] 'a'"
```

Operator	Description
`beginsWith`	Evaluates to `true` if the left-hand string expression begins with the right-hand string expression. This is similar to `contains`, but only matches if the right-hand string expression is found at the beginning of the left-hand string expression.
`in`	Evaluates to `true` if the left-hand string expression is found anywhere in the right-hand string expression.
`contains`	Evaluates to `true` if the right-hand string expression is found anywhere in the left-hand string expression.
`endsWith`	Evaluates to `true` if the left-hand string expression ends with the right-hand string expression. This is similar to `contains`, but only matches if the left-hand string expression is found at the very end of the right-hand string expression.
`like`	Evaluates to `true` if the left-hand string expression matches the right-hand string wildcard string expression. A wildcard string expression is a string that uses normal characters with two special wildcard characters: The `*` wildcard matches zero or more of any character The `?` wildcard matches any character. For example, the wildcard string "d?g" matches "dog", "dig", and "dug", but not "ding", "dg", or "a dog".
`==`, `=`	Evaluates to `true` if the left-hand string is lexicographically equal to the right-hand string.
`!=`, `<>`	Evaluates to `true` if the left-hand string is not lexicographically equal to the right-hand string.

Example

We use the query engine's string operators to find:

Projects with a name starting with the letter 'e'
Projects with names that contain 'ie'

  "name BEGINSWITH[c] 'e'"
  "name CONTAINS 'ie'"

Aggregate Operators

You can apply an aggregate operator to a collection property of a Realm object. Aggregate operators traverse a collection and reduce it to a single value.

Operator	Description
`@avg`	Evaluates to the average value of a given numerical property across a collection. If any values are `null`, they are not counted in the result.
`@count`	Evaluates to the number of objects in the given collection.
`@max`	Evaluates to the highest value of a given numerical property across a collection. `null` values are ignored.
`@min`	Evaluates to the lowest value of a given numerical property across a collection. `null` values are ignored.
`@sum`	Evaluates to the sum of a given numerical property across a collection, excluding `null` values.

Example

These examples all query for projects containing tasks that meet this criteria:

Projects with average task priority above 5.
Projects with a task whose priority is less than 5.
Projects with a task whose priority is greater than 5.
Projects with more than 5 tasks.
Projects with long-running tasks.

  "tasks.@avg.priority > 5"
  "tasks.@max.priority < 5"
  "tasks.@min.priority > 5"
  "tasks.@count > 5"
  "tasks.@sum.progressMinutes > 100"

Collection Operators

A collection operator uses specific rules to determine whether to pass each input collection object to the output collection by applying a given predicate to every element of a given list property of the object.

Operator	Description
`ALL`	Returns objects where the predicate evaluates to `true` for all objects in the collection.
`ANY`, `SOME`	Returns objects where the predicate evaluates to `true` for any objects in the collection.
`NONE`	Returns objects where the predicate evaluates to false for all objects in the collection.

Example

We use the query engine's collection operators to find:

Projects with no complete tasks.
Projects with any top priority tasks.

  "NONE tasks.isComplete == true"
  "ANY tasks.priority == 10"

Sort, Distinct, Limit

You can use additional operators in your queries to sort and limit the results collection.

Operator	Description
`SORT`	Specify the name of the property to compare. You can optionally specify ascending (`ASC`) or descending (`DESC`) order. If you specify multiple SORT fields, the query sorts by the first field, and then the second. For example, if you `SORT (priority, name)`, the query returns sorted by priority, and then by name when priority value is the same.
`DISTINCT`	Specify a name of the property to compare. Remove duplicates for that property in the results collection. If you specify multiple DISTINCT fields, the query removes duplicates by the first field, and then the second. For example, if you `DISTINCT (name, assignee)`, the query only removes duplicates where the values of both properties are the same.
`LIMIT`	Limit the results collection to the specified number.

Example

We use the query engine's sort, distinct, and limit operators to find:

Tasks where the assignee is Ali
- Sorted by priority in descending order
- Enforcing uniqueness by name
- Limiting the results to 5 tasks

"assignee = 'Ali' SORT(priority DESC) DISTINCT(name) LIMIT(5)"

Flexible Sync RQL Limitations

Flexible Sync has some limitations when using RQL operators. When you write the query subscription that determines which data to sync, the server does not support these query operators. However, you can still use the full range of RQL features to query the synced data set in the client application.

Unsupported Query Operators in Flexible Sync

Operator Type	Unsupported Operators
String Operators	`in`
Aggregate Operators	`@avg`, `@count`, `@max`, `@min`, `@sum`
Query Suffixes	`DISTINCT`, `SORT`, `LIMIT`

Case insensitive queries ([c]) cannot use indexes effectively. As a result, case insensitive queries are not recommended, since they could lead to performance problems.

Flexible Sync only supports @count for array fields.

Embedded or Linked Objects

Flexible Sync does not support querying on properties in Embedded Objects or links. For example, obj1.field = “foo”.

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Overview

Expressions

Dot Notation

Subqueries

Operators

Comparison Operators

Logical Operators

String Operators

Aggregate Operators

Collection Operators

Sort, Distinct, Limit

Flexible Sync RQL Limitations

Unsupported Query Operators in Flexible Sync

Embedded or Linked Objects

Realm Query Language