Filter Data - Swift SDK

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Overview

To filter data in your realm, you can leverage Realm's query engine.

New in version 10.19.0:: Realm Swift Query API

The Realm Swift Query API offers an idiomatic way for Swift developers to query data. Use Swift-style syntax to query a realm with the benefits of auto-completion and type safety. The Realm Swift Query API does not replace the NSPredicate Query API in newer SDK versions; instead, you can use either.

For SDK versions prior to 10.19.0, or for Objective-C developers, Realm's query engine supports NSPredicate Query.

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. Finally, a Task can have one or more string labels and one or more integer ratings.

A Project has zero or more Tasks.

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

You can set up the realm for these examples with the following code:

Realm Swift Query API

New in version 10.19.0: For SDK versions older than 10.19.0, use the NSPredicate query API.

You can build a filter with Swift-style syntax using the .where Realm Swift query API:

let realmSwiftQuery = projects.where {
    ($0.tasks.progressMinutes > 1) && ($0.tasks.assignee == "Ali")
}

This query API constructs an NSPredicate to perform the query. It gives developers a type-safe idiomatic API to use directly, and abstracts away the NSPredicate construction.

The .where API takes a callback that evaluates to true or false. The callback receives an instance of the type being queried, and you can leverage the compiler to statically check that you are creating valid queries that reference valid properties.

In the examples on this page, we use the $0 shorthand to reference the variable passed into the callback.

Operators

There are several types of operators available to query a Realm collection. Queries work by evaluating an operator expression for every object in the collection being queried. If the expression resolves to true, Realm Database includes the object in the results collection.

Comparison Operators

You can use Swift comparison operators with the Realm Swift Query API (==, !=, >, >=, <, <=).

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.

let highPriorityTasks = tasks.where {
    $0.priority > 5
}
print("High-priority tasks: \(highPriorityTasks.count)")
let longRunningTasks = tasks.where {
    $0.progressMinutes >= 120
}
print("Long running tasks: \(longRunningTasks.count)")
let unassignedTasks = tasks.where {
    $0.assignee == nil
}
print("Unassigned tasks: \(unassignedTasks.count)")

Collections

You can query for values within a collection using the .contains operators. You can search for individual values by element, or search within a range.

Operator	Description
`.in(_ collection:)`	Evaluates to `true` if the property referenced by the expression contains an element in the given array.
`.contains(_ element:)`	Equivalent to the `IN` operator. Evaluates to `true` if the property referenced by the expression contains the value.
`.contains(_ range:)`	Equivalent to the `BETWEEN` operator. Evaluates to `true` if the property referenced by the expression contains a value that is within the range.
`.containsAny(in: )`	Equivalent to the `IN` operator combined with the `ANY` operator. Evaluates to `true` if any elements contained in the given array are present in the collection.

Example

Find tasks where the labels MutableSet collection property contains "quick win".
Find tasks where the progressMinutes property is within a given range of minutes.

let quickWinTasks = tasks.where {
    $0.labels.contains("quick win")
}
print("Tasks labeled 'quick win': \(quickWinTasks.count)")
let progressBetween30and60 = tasks.where {
    $0.progressMinutes.contains(30...60)
}
print("Tasks with progress between 30 and 60 minutes: \(progressBetween30and60.count)")

Find tasks where the labels MutableSet collection property contains any of the elements in the given array: "quick win" or "bug".

let quickWinOrBugTasks = tasks.where {
    $0.labels.containsAny(in: ["quick win", "bug"])
}
print("Tasks labeled 'quick win' or 'bug': \(quickWinOrBugTasks.count)")

New in version 10.23.0:: The IN operator

The Realm Swift Query API now supports the IN operator. Evaluates to true if the property referenced by the expression contains the value.

Example

Find tasks assigned to specific teammates Ali or Jamie by seeing if the assignee property is in a list of names.

let taskAssigneeInAliOrJamie = tasks.where {
    let assigneeNames = ["Ali", "Jamie"]
    return $0.assignee.in(assigneeNames)
}
print("Tasks IN Ali or Jamie: \(taskAssigneeInAliOrJamie.count)")

Logical Operators

You can make compound queries using Swift logical operators (&&, !, ||).

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:

let aliComplete = tasks.where {
    ($0.assignee == "Ali") && ($0.isComplete == true)
}
print("Ali's complete tasks: \(aliComplete.count)")

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 options with string operators:

.caseInsensitive for case insensitivity.
```
$0.name.contains("f", options: .caseInsensitive)
```
.diacriticInsensitive for diacritic insensitivity: Realm treats special characters as the base character (e.g. é -> e).
```
$0.name.contains("e", options: .diacriticInsensitive)
```

Operator	Description
`.starts(with value: String)`	Evaluates to `true` if the collection contains an element whose value begins with the specified string value.
`.contains(_ value: String)`	Evaluates to `true` if the left-hand string expression is found anywhere in the right-hand string expression.
`.ends(with value: String)`	Evaluates to `true` if the collection contains an element whose value ends with the specified string value.
`.like(_ value: String)`	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

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

Projects with a name starting with the letter 'e'
Projects with names that contain 'ie'
Projects with an assignee property whose value is similar to Al?x
Projects that contain e-like characters with diacritic insensitivity

// Use the .caseInsensitive option for case-insensitivity.
let startWithE = projects.where {
    $0.name.starts(with: "e", options: .caseInsensitive)
}
print("Projects that start with 'e': \(startWithE.count)")
let containIe = projects.where {
    $0.name.contains("ie")
}
print("Projects that contain 'ie': \(containIe.count)")
let likeWildcard = tasks.where {
    $0.assignee.like("Al?x")
}
print("Tasks with assignees like Al?x: \(likeWildcard.count)")
// Use the .diacreticInsensitive option for diacritic insensitivty: contains 'e', 'E', 'é', etc.
let containElike = projects.where {
    $0.name.contains("e", options: .diacriticInsensitive)
}
print("Projects that contain 'e', 'E', 'é', etc.: \(containElike.count)")

Note

String sorting and case-insensitive queries are only supported for character sets in 'Latin Basic', 'Latin Supplement', 'Latin Extended A', and 'Latin Extended B' (UTF-8 range 0-591).

Geospatial Operators

New in version 10.47.0.

Use the geoWithin operator to query geospatial data with one of the SDK's provided shapes:

GeoCircle
GeoBox
GeoPolygon

This operator evaluates to true if:

An object has a geospatial data "shape" containing a String property with the value of Point and a List containing a longitude/latitude pair.
The longitude/latitude of the persisted object falls within the geospatial query shape.

let companiesInSmallCircle = realm.objects(Geospatial_Company.self).where {
    $0.location.geoWithin(smallCircle!)
}
print("Number of companies in small circle: \(companiesInSmallCircle.count)")

For more information about querying geospatial data, refer to Query Geospatial Data.

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.
`.count`	Evaluates to the number of objects in the given collection. This is currently only supported on to-many relationship collections and not on lists of primitives. In order to use `.count` on a list of primitives, consider wrapping the primitives in a Realm object.
`.max`	Evaluates to the highest value of a given numerical property across a collection.
`.min`	Evaluates to the lowest value of a given numerical property across a collection.
`.sum`	Evaluates to the sum of a given numerical property across a collection.

Example

We create a couple of filters to show different facets of the data:

Projects with average tasks priority above 5.
Projects that contain only low-priority tasks below 5.
Projects where all tasks are high-priority above 5.
Projects that contain more than 5 tasks.
Long running projects.

let averageTaskPriorityAbove5 = projects.where {
    $0.tasks.priority.avg > 5
}
print("Projects with average task priority above 5: \(averageTaskPriorityAbove5.count)")
let allTasksLowerPriority = projects.where {
    $0.tasks.priority.max < 5
}
print("Projects where all tasks are lower priority: \(allTasksLowerPriority.count)")
let allTasksHighPriority = projects.where {
    $0.tasks.priority.min > 5
}
print("Projects where all tasks are high priority: \(allTasksHighPriority.count)")
let moreThan5Tasks = projects.where {
    $0.tasks.count > 5
}
print("Projects with more than 5 tasks: \(moreThan5Tasks.count)")
let longRunningProjects = projects.where {
    $0.tasks.progressMinutes.sum > 100
}
print("Long running projects: \(longRunningProjects.count)")

Set Operators

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

Example

Running the following queries in projects collections returns:

Projects where a set of string labels contains any of "quick win", "bug".
Projects where any element in a set of integer ratings is greater than 3.

let projectsWithGivenLabels = projects.where {
    $0.tasks.labels.containsAny(in: ["quick win", "bug"])
}
print("Projects with quick wins: \(projectsWithGivenLabels.count)")
let projectsWithRatingsOver3 = projects.where {
    $0.tasks.ratings > 3
}
print("Projects with any ratings over 3: \(projectsWithRatingsOver3.count)")

Subqueries

You can iterate through a collection property with another query using a subquery. To form a subquery, you must wrap the expression in parentheses and immediately follow it with the .count aggregator.

(<query>).count > n

If the expression does not produce a valid subquery, you'll get an exception at runtime.

Example

Running the following query on a projects collection returns projects with tasks that have not been completed by a user named Alex.

let subquery = projects.where {
            ($0.tasks.isComplete == false && $0.tasks.assignee == "Alex").count > 0
}
print("Projects with incomplete tasks assigned to Alex: \(subquery.count)")

NSPredicate Queries

You can build a filter with NSPredicate:

Expressions

Filters consist of expressions in an NSPredicate. An expression consists of one of the following:

The name (keypath) of a property of the object currently being evaluated.
An operator and up to two argument expression(s).
A value, such as a string ('hello') or a number (5).

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

Substitutions

You can use the following substitutions in your predicate format strings:

%@ to specify values
%K to specify keypaths

Operators

There are several types of operators available to filter a Realm collection. Filters work by evaluating an operator expression for every object in the collection being filtered. If the expression resolves to true, Realm Database includes the object in the results collection.

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.

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 assigned to specific teammates Ali or Jamie by seeing if the assignee property is in a list of names.

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

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.
[d] for diacritic insensitivity: Realm treats special characters as the base character (e.g. é -> e).

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.
`contains`, `in`	Evaluates to `true` if the left-hand string expression is found anywhere in the right-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' and projects with names that contain 'ie':

Note

String sorting and case-insensitive queries are only supported for character sets in 'Latin Basic', 'Latin Supplement', 'Latin Extended A', and 'Latin Extended B' (UTF-8 range 0-591).

Geospatial Operators

New in version 10.47.0.

You can perform a geospatial query using the IN operator with one of the SDK's provided shapes:

GeoCircle
GeoBox
GeoPolygon

This operator evaluates to true if:

An object has a geospatial data "shape" containing a String property with the value of Point and a List containing a longitude/latitude pair.
The longitude/latitude of the persisted object falls within the geospatial query shape.

let filterArguments = NSMutableArray()
filterArguments.add(largeBox)
let companiesInLargeBox = realm.objects(Geospatial_Company.self)
    .filter(NSPredicate(format: "location IN %@", argumentArray: filterArguments as? [Any]))
print("Number of companies in large box: \(companiesInLargeBox.count)")

For more information about querying geospatial data, refer to Query Geospatial Data.

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.
`@count`	Evaluates to the number of objects in the given collection. This is currently only supported on to-many relationship collections and not on lists of primitives. In order to use `@count` on a list of primitives, consider wrapping the primitives in a Realm object.
`@max`	Evaluates to the highest value of a given numerical property across a collection.
`@min`	Evaluates to the lowest value of a given numerical property across a collection.
`@sum`	Evaluates to the sum of a given numerical property across a collection.

Example

We create a couple of filters to show different facets of the data:

Projects with average tasks priority above 5.
Long running projects.

Set Operators

A set 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 set operators to find:

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

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 list 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.

Example

Running the following filter on a projects collection returns projects with tasks that have not been completed by a user named Alex.

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Overview

About the Examples on This Page

Realm Swift Query API

Operators

Comparison Operators

Example

Collections

Example

Example

Logical Operators

Example

String Operators

Note

Example

Note

Geospatial Operators

Aggregate Operators

Example

Set Operators

Example

Subqueries

Example

NSPredicate Queries

Expressions

Dot Notation

Substitutions

Operators

Comparison Operators

Important

Types Must Match

Example

Logical Operators

Example

String Operators

Note

Example

Note

Geospatial Operators

Aggregate Operators

Example

Set Operators

Example

Subqueries

Example

Filter Data - Swift SDK