Collections - Java SDK
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A Realm collection is an object that contains zero or more instances of one type. Realm collections are homogenous, i.e. all objects in a collection are of the same type.
You can filter and sort any collection using Realm's query engine. Collections are live, so they always reflect the current state of the realm instance on the current thread. You can also listen for changes in the collection by subscribing to collection notifications.
Realm has two kinds of collections: lists and results.
Lists
Realm objects can contain lists of non-Realm-object data
types. You can model these collections with the type RealmList<T>,
where T can be the following types:
StringIntegerUUIDObjectIdBooleanFloatDoubleShortLongBytebyte[]Date
List Collections
A list collection represents a to-many relationship between two Realm types. Lists are mutable: within a write transaction, you can add and remove elements on a list. Lists are not associated with a query.
Results Collections
A results collection represents the lazily-evaluated results of a query operation. Results are immutable: you cannot add or remove elements on the results collection. Results have an associated query that determines their contents.
The RealmResults class inherits from
AbstractList and behaves
in similar ways. For example, RealmResults are ordered, and you can
access the individual objects through an index. If a query has no
matches, the returned RealmResults object will be a list of length
0, not a null object reference.
You can only modify or delete objects in a RealmResults set
in a write transaction.
Iteration
Because Realm collections are live, objects may move as you iterate over a collection. You can use snapshots to iterate over collections safely.
Adapters
Realm offers adapters to help bind data
to standard UI widgets. These classes work with any class that
implements the OrderedRealmCollection interface, which includes
the built-in RealmResults and RealmList classes. For more
information on adapters, see the documentation on
Displaying Collections.
Important
Adapters Require Managed Objects
The Realm adapters only accept managed
Realm object instances tied to an instance of a realm.
To display non-managed objects, use the general-use Android
RecyclerView.Adapter for recycler views or ArrayAdapter for
list views.
Collections are Live
Like live objects, Realm collections are usually live:
Live results collections always reflect the current results of the associated query.
Live lists always reflect the current state of the relationship on the realm instance.
There are three cases when a collection is not live:
The collection is unmanaged, e.g. a List property of a Realm object that has not been added to a realm yet or that has been copied from a realm.
The collection is frozen.
The collection is part of a snapshot.
Combined with collection notifications, live collections enable clean, reactive code. For example, suppose your view displays the results of a query. You can keep a reference to the results collection in your view class, then read the results collection as needed without having to refresh it or validate that it is up-to-date.
Warning
Indexes may change
Results update themselves automatically. If you store the positional index of an object in a collection or the count of objects in a collection, the stored index or count value could be outdated by the time you use it.
Results are Lazily Evaluated
Realm only runs a query when you actually request the results of that query, e.g. by accessing elements of the results collection. This lazy evaluation enables you to write elegant, highly performant code for handling large data sets and complex queries.
Limiting Query Results
As a result of lazy evaluation, you do not need any special mechanism to limit query results with Realm. For example, if your query matches thousands of objects, but you only want to load the first ten, simply access only the first ten elements of the results collection.
Pagination
Thanks to lazy evaluation, the common task of pagination becomes quite simple. For example, suppose you have a results collection associated with a query that matches thousands of objects in your realm. You display one hundred objects per page. To advance to any page, simply access the elements of the results collection starting at the index that corresponds to the target page.
List vs. Results
When you need a collection, you can use the following rule of thumb to determine whether a list or a results collection is appropriate:
When you define the properties of your Realm objects, use lists to define to-many relationships except implicit inverse relationships.
Use results everywhere else.
To understand these different use cases, consider whether you should be able to add or remove objects directly. Lists allow you to add and remove objects directly, because you control the relationships. Results collections do not allow you to add or remove objects directly, because their contents are determined by a query.
Example
Consider a Realm type called Person with a field called
emails that is a collection of strings representing
email addresses. You control this data. Your application
needs to add and remove email addresses from your Person
instances. Therefore, use a list to define the field
type of emails.
On the other hand, when you query the realm for all Persons over the age of 25, it would not make sense for you to add or remove Persons directly to the resulting collection. The contents of that collection only change when the query matches a different set of Persons. Therefore, Realm gives you a results collection.
Note
Inverse one-to-many relationships
Since Realm automatically determines the contents of implicit inverse relationship collections, you may not add or remove objects from such a collection. Therefore, the type of such a one-to-many relationship property is actually a results collection, not a list.