Query Syntax

ObjectBox lets you formulate your database search queries as familiar-looking Swift expressions. Please refer to the guides for a general introduction. This document is a short syntax reference.

Property-Based

Inside Box.query(_:), you can use the generated Property objects to form query conditions:

// Written by you:
class Person: Entity {
    var name: String
    // ...
}

// Created by the code generator with the same names as 
// your entity properties:
extension Person {
    static var name: Property<Person, String> { /* ... */ }
}

// Then you can write:
try store.box(for: Person.self).query {
    Person.name.isEqual(to: "Steve", caseSensitiveCompare: true)
}.build()

or more succinctly,

try store.box(for: Person.self).query {
    .name == "Steve"
}.build()

A variety of conditions are available for your use in query expressions, depending on the type of the Property.ValueType (String in the example above). For example:

• Property.isEqual(to:)
• Property.isNotEqual(to:)
• Property.isGreaterThan(_:)
• Property.isBetween(_:and:)

Please refer to the API docs of Property for a complete list.

Operators

To make queries more familiar and readable, you can also use standard Swift operators in query blocks. Under the hood, these operators produce QueryConditions as their results, so are 100% equivalent.

Currently, supported operators are:

• == for Property.isEqual(to:)
• != for Property.isNotEqual(to:)
• < for Property.isLessThan(_:) or Property.isBefore(_:)
• > for Property.isGreaterThan(_:) or Property.isAfter(_:)
• ∈ for Property.isIn(_:)
• ∉ for Property.isNotIn(_:)

Note that not all operators are available for every Property.ValueType.

In addition to these conditional operators, there is the .= operator to create PropertyAliases.

try store.box(for: Person.self).query {
    return "AgeRestriction" .= Person.age > 18
        && Person.name.startsWith("St")
}.build()