Compact a Realm - .NET SDK

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Overview

Compaction Options
Realm Configuration File
Realm.Compact() Method
When to Compact a Realm

Overview

Over time, the storage space used by Realm might become fragmented and take up more space than necessary. To rearrange the internal storage and potentially reduce the file size, you can compact the Realm file.

Important

Realm file must not be in use

Realm cannot compact a file that is in use. Be sure there are no open instances that use the file.

Realm reduces the file size by writing a new (compact) version of the file, and then replacing the original with the newly-written file. Therefore, to compact, you must have free storage space equivalent to the original realm file size.

Tip

Implement Compacting in Your Production Application

Every production application should implement ShouldCompactOnLaunch to periodically reduce the realm file size. For more information about compacting a realm, see: When to Compact a Realm.

Compaction Options

You can configure realm to automatically compact the database each time a realm is opened, or you can compact the file without first obtaining a realm instance.

Realm Configuration File

You can configure Realm to check the Realm file each time it is opened by specifying a ShouldCompactDelegate in the configuration. The following code example shows how to do this:

config = new RealmConfiguration()
{
    ShouldCompactOnLaunch = (totalBytes, usedBytes) =>
    {
        /* totalBytes refers to the size of the file on disk in 
         * bytes (data + free space).
         * usedBytes refers to the number of bytes used by 
         * the realm file
         */
        // Compact if the file is over 100MB in size or more
        // than 50% 'used'
        var oneHundredMB = 100 * 1024 * 1024;
        return (totalBytes > (double)oneHundredMB) ||
            ((double)usedBytes / totalBytes > 0.5);
    }
};
var realm = await Realm.GetInstanceAsync(config);

If the delegate returns true -- and the file is not in use -- the realm file is compacted prior to making the instance available.

Realm.Compact() Method

Alternatively, you can compact a realm file without first obtaining an instance to the Realm by calling the Compact() method. The following example shows how to do this:

config = new RealmConfiguration("my.realm");
Realm.Compact(config);

The Compact method will return true if the operation is successful.

When to Compact a Realm

Compacting a realm can be an expensive operation that can block the UI thread. Your application should not compact every time you open a realm. Instead, try to optimize compacting so your application does it just often enough to prevent the file size from growing too large. If your application runs in a resource-constrained environment, you may want to compact when you reach a certain file size or when the file size negatively impacts performance.

These recommendations can help you start optimizing compaction for your application:

Set the max file size to a multiple of your average realm state size. If your average realm state size is 10MB, you might set the max file size to 20MB or 40MB, depending on expected usage and device constraints.
As a starting point, compact realms when more than 50% of the realm file size is no longer in use. Divide the currently used bytes by the total file size to determine the percentage of space that is currently used. Then, check for that to be less than 50%. This means that greater than 50% of your realm file size is unused space, and it is a good time to compact. After experimentation, you may find a different percentage works best for your application.

These calculations might look like this in your delegate:

// Set a maxFileSize equal to 20MB in bytes
var maxFileSize = 20 * 1024 * 1024;
/* Check for the realm file size to be greater than the max file size,
 * and the amount of bytes currently used to be less than 50% of the
 * total realm file size */
return (totalBytes > (double)maxFileSize) ||
   ((double)usedBytes / totalBytes > 0.5);

Experiment with conditions to find the right balance of how often to compact realm files in your application.

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