Realm

A Realm instance represents a Realm database.

const Realm = require('realm');

Related Classes

App
Auth
Collection
Credentials
List
Object
RemoteMongoDBCollection
Results
Sync
User
Worker
RemoteMongoDB
RemoteMongoDBDatabase
empty
readonly

Indicates if this Realm contains any objects.

Type:
boolean
isClosed
readonly

Indicates if this Realm has been closed.

Type:
boolean
isInTransaction
readonly

Indicates if this Realm is in a write transaction.

Type:
boolean
path
readonly

The path to the file where this Realm is stored.

Type:
string
readOnly
readonly

Indicates if this Realm was opened as read-only.

Type:
boolean
schema
readonly

A normalized representation of the schema provided in the Configuration when this Realm was constructed.

Type:
[ObjectSchema, ...]
schemaVersion
readonly

The current schema version of this Realm.

Type:
number
syncSession

Gets the sync session if this is a synced Realm

Type:
Session
new Realm(config)

Create a new Realm instance using the provided config. If a Realm does not yet exist at config.path (or Realm.defaultPath if not provided), then this constructor will create it with the provided config.schema (which is required in this case). Otherwise, the instance will access the existing Realm from the file at that path. In this case, config.schema is optional or not have changed, unless config.schemaVersion is incremented, in which case the Realm will be automatically migrated to use the new schema. In the case of query-based sync, config.schema is required. An exception will be thrown if config.schema is not defined.

Parameters:
  • config optional
Throws:
  • Error
    • If anything in the provided config is invalid.

  • IncompatibleSyncedRealmError
    • when an incompatible synced Realm is opened

Realm.automaticSyncConfiguration(user)Configuration
staticDeprecated: use Sync.User.createConfiguration() instead.

Return a configuration for a default synced Realm. The server URL for the user will be used as base for the URL for the synced Realm. If no user is supplied, the current user will be used.

Parameters:
  • user
    • Type: Realm.Sync.User
    • an optional sync user

Throws:
  • Error
    • if zero or multiple users are logged in

Returns: Configuration
  • a configuration matching a default synced Realm.
Realm.copyBundledRealmFiles()
static

Copy all bundled Realm files to app's default file folder. This is only implemented for React Native.

Throws:
  • Error
    • If an I/O error occured or method is not implemented.

Realm.createTemplateObject(schema)
static

Creates a template object for a Realm model class where all optional fields are undefined and all required fields have the default value for the given data type, either the value set by the default property in the schema or the default value for the datatype if the schema doesn't specify one, i.e. 0, false and "".

Parameters:
Realm.deleteFile(config)
static

Delete the Realm file for the given configuration.

Parameters:
Throws:
  • Error
    • If anything in the provided config is invalid.

Realm.exists(config)boolean
static

Checks if the Realm already exists on disk.

Parameters:
Throws:
  • Error
    • if anything in the provided config is invalid.

Returns: boolean returns true if the Realm exists on the device, false if not.
Realm.open(config)ProgressPromise
static

Open a Realm asynchronously with a promise. If the Realm is synced, it will be fully synchronized before it is available. In the case of query-based sync, config.schema is required. An exception will be thrown if config.schema is not defined.

Parameters:
  • config
    • Type: Configuration
    • if no config is defined, it will open the default realm

Throws:
  • Error
    • If anything in the provided config is invalid.

Returns: ProgressPromise
  • a promise that will be resolved with the Realm instance when it's available.
Realm.schemaVersion(path, encryptionKey)number
static

Get the current schema version of the Realm at the given path.

Parameters:
  • path
    • Type: string
    • The path to the file where the Realm database is stored.

  • encryptionKey optional
    • Type: ArrayBuffer or ArrayBufferView
    • Required only when accessing encrypted Realms.

Throws:
  • Error
    • When passing an invalid or non-matching encryption key.

Returns: number version of the schema, or -1 if no Realm exists at path.
addListener(name, callback)

Add a listener callback for the specified event name.

Parameters:
  • name
    • Type: string
    • The name of event that should cause the callback to be called. Currently, only the "change" and "schema" events are supported.

  • callback
    • Type: callback(Realm, string) or callback(Realm, string, Schema)
    • Function to be called when a change event occurs. Each callback will only be called once per event, regardless of the number of times it was added.

Throws:
  • Error
    • If an invalid event name is supplied, or if callback is not a function.

beginTransaction()

Initiate a write transaction.

When doing a transaction, it is highly recommended to do error handling. If you don't handle errors, your data might become inconsistent. Error handling will often involve canceling the transaction.

Throws:
  • Error
    • When already in write transaction

Example:
realm.beginTransaction();
try {
  realm.create('Person', { name: 'Arthur Dent',  origin: 'Earth' });
  realm.create('Person', { name: 'Ford Prefect', origin: 'Betelgeuse Five' });
  realm.commitTransaction();
} catch (e) {
  realm.cancelTransaction();
  throw e;
}
cancelTransaction()

Cancel a write transaction.

close()

Closes this Realm so it may be re-opened with a newer schema version. All objects and collections from this Realm are no longer valid after calling this method. The method is idempotent.

commitTransaction()

Commit a write transaction.

compact()true

Replaces all string columns in this Realm with a string enumeration column and compacts the database file.

Cannot be called from a write transaction.

Compaction will not occur if other Realm instances exist.

While compaction is in progress, attempts by other threads or processes to open the database will wait.

Be warned that resource requirements for compaction is proportional to the amount of live data in the database. Compaction works by writing the database contents to a temporary database file and then replacing the database with the temporary one.

Returns: true if compaction succeeds.
create(type, properties, updateMode)Realm.Object

Create a new Realm object of the given type and with the specified properties.

Parameters:
  • type
    • Type: ObjectType
    • The type of Realm object to create.

  • properties
    • Type: Object
    • Property values for all required properties without a default value.

  • updateMode optional
    • Type: boolean or string
    • Default: 'never'
    • Optional update mode. It can be one of the following values - 'never': Objects are only created. If an existing object exists, an exception is thrown. This is the default value. - 'all': If an existing object is found, all properties provided will be updated, any other properties will remain unchanged. - 'modified': If an existing object exists, only properties where the value has actually changed will be updated. This improves notifications and server side performance but also have implications for how changes across devices are merged. For most use cases, the behaviour will match the intuitive behaviour of how changes should be merged, but if updating an entire object is considered an atomic operation, this mode should not be used.

Returns: Realm.Object
delete(object)

Deletes the provided Realm object, or each one inside the provided collection.

Parameters:
deleteAll()

WARNING: This will delete all objects in the Realm!

deleteModel(name)

Deletes a Realm model, including all of its objects. If called outside a migration function, schema and schemaVersion are updated.

Parameters:
  • name
    • Type: string
    • the model name

objectForPrimaryKey(type, key)Realm.Object or undefined

Searches for a Realm object by its primary key.

Parameters:
  • type
    • Type: ObjectType
    • The type of Realm object to search for.

  • key
    • Type: number or string
    • The primary key value of the object to search for.

Throws:
  • Error
    • If type passed into this method is invalid or if the object type did not have a primaryKey specified in its ObjectSchema.

Returns: Realm.Object or undefined if no object is found.
objects(type)Realm.Results

Returns all objects of the given type in the Realm.

Parameters:
  • type
    • Type: ObjectType
    • The type of Realm objects to retrieve.

Throws:
  • Error
    • If type passed into this method is invalid.

Returns: Realm.Results that will live-update as objects are created and destroyed.
removeAllListeners(name)

Remove all event listeners (restricted to the event name, if provided).

Parameters:
  • name optional
    • Type: string
    • The name of the event whose listeners should be removed. Currently, only the "change" and "schema" events are supported.

Throws:
  • Error
    • When invalid event name is supplied

removeListener(name, callback)

Remove the listener callback for the specfied event name.

Parameters:
  • name
    • Type: string
    • The event name. Currently, only the "change" and "schema" events are supported.

  • callback
    • Type: callback(Realm, string) or callback(Realm, string, Schema)
    • Function that was previously added as a listener for this event through the addListener method.

Throws:
  • Error
    • If an invalid event name is supplied, or if callback is not a function.

write(callback)

Synchronously call the provided callback inside a write transaction. If an exception happens inside a transaction, you’ll lose the changes in that transaction, but the Realm itself won’t be affected (or corrupted). More precisely, beginTransaction() and commitTransaction() will be called automatically. If any exception is thrown during the transaction cancelTransaction() will be called instead of commitTransaction() and the exception will be re-thrown to the caller of write().

Nested transactions (calling write() within write()) is not possible.

Parameters:
  • callback
    • Type: function
writeCopyTo(path, encryptionKey)

Writes a compacted copy of the Realm to the given path.

The destination file cannot already exist.

Note that if this method is called from within a write transaction, the current data is written, not the data from the point when the previous write transaction was committed.

Parameters:
  • path
    • Type: string
    • path to save the Realm to

  • encryptionKey optional
    • Type: ArrayBuffer or ArrayBufferView
    • Optional 64-byte encryption key to encrypt the new file with.

Configuration

This describes the different options used to create a Realm instance.

Type:
Object
Properties:
  • encryptionKey optional
    • Type: ArrayBuffer or ArrayBufferView
    • The 512-bit (64-byte) encryption key used to encrypt and decrypt all data in the Realm.

  • migration optional
    • Type: callback(Realm, Realm)
    • The function to run if a migration is needed. This function should provide all the logic for converting data models from previous schemas to the new schema. This function takes two arguments:

      • oldRealm - The Realm before migration is performed.
      • newRealm - The Realm that uses the latest schema, which should be modified as necessary.
  • deleteRealmIfMigrationNeeded optional
    • Type: boolean
    • Default: false
    • Specifies if this Realm should be deleted if a migration is needed.

  • shouldCompactOnLaunch optional
    • Type: callback(number, number)
    • The function called when opening a Realm for the first time during the life of a process to determine if it should be compacted before being returned to the user. The function takes two arguments: - totalSize - The total file size (data + free space) - usedSize - The total bytes used by data in the file. It returns true to indicate that an attempt to compact the file should be made. The compaction will be skipped if another process is accessing it.

  • path optional
    • Type: string
    • Default: Realm.defaultPath
    • The path to the file where the Realm database should be stored.

  • fifoFilesFallbackPath optional
    • Type: string
    • Opening a Realm creates a number of FIFO special files in order to coordinate access to the Realm across threads and processes. If the Realm file is stored in a location that does not allow the creation of FIFO special files (e.g. FAT32 filesystems), then the Realm cannot be opened. In that case Realm needs a different location to store these files and this property defines that location. The FIFO special files are very lightweight and the main Realm file will still be stored in the location defined by the path property. This property is ignored if the directory defined by path allow FIFO special files.

  • inMemory optional
    • Type: boolean
    • Default: false
    • Specifies if this Realm should be opened in-memory. This still requires a path (can be the default path) to identify the Realm so other processes can open the same Realm. The file will also be used as swap space if the Realm becomes bigger than what fits in memory, but it is not persistent and will be removed when the last instance is closed.

  • readOnly optional
    • Type: boolean
    • Default: false
    • Specifies if this Realm should be opened as read-only.

  • disableFormatUpgrade optional
    • Type: boolean
    • Default: false
    • Specifies if this Realm's file format should be automatically upgraded if it was created with an older version of the Realm library. If set to true and a file format upgrade is required, an error will be thrown instead.

  • schema optional
    • Type: [(ObjectClass | ObjectSchema), ...]
    • Specifies all the object types in this Realm. Required when first creating a Realm at this path. If omitted, the schema will be read from the existing Realm file.

  • schemaVersion optional
    • Type: number
    • Required (and must be incremented) after changing the schema.

ObjectClass

Realm objects will inherit methods, getters, and setters from the prototype of this constructor. It is highly recommended that this constructor inherit from Realm.Object.

Type:
Class
Properties:
  • schema
    • Type: ObjectSchema
    • Static property specifying object schema information.

ObjectSchema
Type:
Object
Properties:
  • name
    • Type: string
    • Represents the object type.

  • primaryKey optional
    • Type: string
    • The name of a "string" or "int" property that must be unique across all objects of this type within the same Realm.

  • embedded optional
    • Type: boolean
    • True if the object type is embedded. An embedded object can be linked to by at most one parent object. Default value: false.

Example:
let MyClassSchema = {
    name: 'MyClass',
    primaryKey: 'pk',
    properties: {
        pk: 'int',
        optionalFloatValue: 'float?' // or {type: 'float', optional: true}
        listOfStrings: 'string[]',
        listOfOptionalDates: 'date?[]',
        indexedInt: {type: 'int', indexed: true}

        linkToObject: 'MyClass',
        listOfObjects: 'MyClass[]', // or {type: 'list', objectType: 'MyClass'}
        objectsLinkingToThisObject: {type: 'linkingObjects', objectType: 'MyClass', property: 'linkToObject'}
    }
};
ObjectSchemaProperty
Type:
Object
Properties:
  • objectType optional
    • Type: PropertyType
    • Required when type is "list" or "linkingObjects", and must match the type of an object in the same schema, or, for "list" only, any other type which may be stored as a Realm property.

  • property optional
    • Type: string
    • Required when type is "linkingObjects", and must match the name of a property on the type specified in objectType that links to the type this property belongs to.

  • default optional
    • Type: any
    • The default value for this property on creation when not otherwise specified.

  • optional optional
    • Type: boolean
    • Signals if this property may be assigned null or undefined. For "list" properties of non-object types, this instead signals whether the values inside the list may be assigned null or undefined. This is not supported for "list" properties of object types and "linkingObjects" properties.

  • indexed optional
    • Type: boolean
    • Signals if this property should be indexed. Only supported for "string", "int", and "bool" properties.

  • mapTo optional
    • Type: string
    • Set this to the name of the underlying property in the Realm file if the Javascript property name is different than the name used in the Realm file. This can e.g. be used to have different naming convention in Javascript than what is being used in the Realm file. Reading and writing properties must be done using the public name. Queries can be done using both the public and the underlying property name.

ObjectType

The type of an object may either be specified as a string equal to the name in a ObjectSchema definition, or a constructor that was specified in the configuration schema.

Type:
string or ObjectClass
PropertyType

A property type may be specified as one of the standard builtin types, or as an object type inside the same schema.

When specifying property types in an object schema, you may append ? to any of the property types to indicate that it is optional (i.e. it can be null in addition to the normal values) and [] to indicate that it is instead a list of that type. For example, optionalIntList: 'int?[]' would declare a property which is a list of nullable integers. The property types reported by collections and in a Realm's schema will never use these forms.

Type:
"bool" or "int" or "float" or "double" or "string" or "decimal128" or "objectId" or "date" or "data" or "list" or "linkingObjects" or "<ObjectType>"
Properties:
  • "bool"
    • Type: boolean
    • Property value may either be true or false.

  • "int"
    • Type: number
    • Property may be assigned any number, but will be stored as a round integer, meaning anything after the decimal will be truncated.

  • "float"
    • Type: number
    • Property may be assigned any number, but will be stored as a float, which may result in a loss of precision.

  • "double"
    • Type: number
    • Property may be assigned any number, and will have no loss of precision.

  • "string"
    • Type: string
    • Property value may be any arbitrary string.

  • "decimal128"
    • Type: Decimal128
    • Property value may be a Decimal128 object (see bson for details).

  • "objectId"
    • Type: ObjectId
    • Property valye may be an ObjectId object (see bson for details).

  • "date"
    • Type: Date
    • Property may be assigned any Date instance.

  • "data"
    • Type: ArrayBuffer
    • Property may either be assigned an ArrayBuffer or ArrayBufferView (e.g. DataView, Int8Array, Float32Array, etc.) instance, but will always be returned as an ArrayBuffer.

  • "linkingObjects"
  • "<ObjectType>"
    • Type: Realm.Object
    • A string that matches the name of an object in the same schema (see ObjectSchema) – this property may be assigned any object of this type from inside the same Realm, and will always be optional (meaning it may also be assigned null or undefined).