Define a Realm Object Model - React Native SDK
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Define an Object Type
To define a Realm object type, create a class that extends Realm.Object.
Define the type's name and properties in a static property called schema.
The type's name must be unique among object types in a realm.
Then you can pass the class itself to the schema property of the Configuration object when opening a realm.
Supported Property Types
Every property in a Realm object has a strongly defined data type. A property's type can be a primitive data type or an object type defined in the same realm. The type also specifies whether the property contains a single value or a list of values.
To specify that a field contains a list of a primitive value type, append []
to the type name.
For a list of supported property types, see Property Types
Define Object Properties
To define a property for an object type, create a key-value pair representing
the name and data type of the property under the properties field.
The following schema defines a Car type that has these properties: _id
make, model, and miles.
Declare an Optional Property
To mark a property as optional, use object syntax and set optional to
true. You can also use a simplified syntax: append a question mark ?
to the type. This is best-suited to basic types. You should use the more
specific object syntax for more complicated types.
In the following example of a Person class, the age and birthday
properties are both optional.
class Person extends Realm.Object<Person> { name!: string; age?: number; birthday?: Date; static schema: ObjectSchema = { name: 'Person', properties: { name: 'string', age: { type: 'int', optional: true, }, // You can use a simplified syntax instead. For // more complicated types, use the object syntax. birthday: 'date?', }, }; }
Declare a Primary Key
To specify a property as an object type's primary key, set the schema's
primaryKey field to the property name.
Note
A primary key is a property that uniquely identifies an object. Realm automatically indexes primary key properties, which allows you to read and modify objects based on their primary key efficiently.
If an object type has a primary key, then all objects of that type must include the primary key property with a unique value among objects of the same type in a realm. An object type can have only one primary key. You cannot change the primary key property for an object type after any object of that type is added to a realm, and you cannot modify an object's primary key value.
In the following example of a Task class, we specify the _id property as
the primary key.
Index a Property
If you frequently run read operations
based on a specific property, you can index the property to optimize
performance. Realm supports indexing for string, integer, boolean, Date,
UUID, and ObjectId properties.
Note
An index significantly increases the speed of certain read operations at the cost of slightly slower write times and additional storage and memory overhead. Realm stores indexes on disk, which makes your realm files larger. Each index entry is a minimum of 12 bytes. The ordering of the index entries supports efficient equality matches and range-based query operations.
To index a given property, set the property's indexed field to true.
In the following example of a Book class, we define an index on the name
property.
Set a Full-Text Search Index
In addition to standard indexes, Realm also supports Full-Text Search (FTS) indexes on string properties. While you can query a string field with or without a standard index, an FTS index enables searching for multiple words and phrases and excluding others.
For more information on querying FTS indexes, see Filter with Full-Text Search.
To create an FTS index, set the indexed
type to 'full-text'. This enables full-text queries on the property. In the
following example, we set the indexed type for the name property to 'full-text':
class Book extends Realm.Object<Book> { name!: string; price?: number; static schema: ObjectSchema = { name: 'Book', properties: { name: {type: 'string', indexed: 'full-text'}, price: 'int?', }, }; }
Set a Default Property Value
To define a default value, set the value of the property to an object with a
type field and a default field.
In the following example of a Car class, we define a miles property with
a default value of 0.
New in version 11.1.0.
In Realm.js v11.1.0 and later, you can use a function to define a dynamic
default value, like the timestamp property in the example below.
Remap a Property
To use a different property name in your code than is stored in
Realm, set mapTo to the name of the property as it appears in
your code.
In the following example of an Employee class, we remap the first_name
property to firstName.
Define an Asymmetric Object
If you are using Flexible Sync and need to sync a collection unidirectionally
from your decive to your Atlas database, you can set the asymmetric property
on your object schema.
Note
Attempting to Read Asymmetric Objects
Asymmetric objects cannot be read. If you attempt to query an asymmetric object, you will get the following error: "Error: You cannot query an asymmetric class.".
To learn more about Data Ingest, read Stream Data to Atlas.
TypeScript and Required Properties
We recommend creating Realm objects
with Realm.create(), but you
can also use the new operator for your object model's class.
If you use new, you must add your class as a generic, along with any
required properties, when extending Realm.Object. This enables full
TypeScript support for your object model, including type errors when required
fields are not defined.
class Book extends Realm.Object<Book, 'name' | 'store'> { name!: string; store!: string; price?: number; static schema: ObjectSchema = { name: 'Book', properties: { name: {type: 'string', indexed: true}, store: 'string', price: 'int?', }, }; }