RealmQuery : do I need to reassign the result of a query operator to the query object every time?

Question

Frequently I see code snippets like this:

public RealmResults<MyObject> getMyObjects(List<Integer> ids) {
    Realm realm = null;
    try {
        realm = Realm.getDefaultInstance();
        RealmQuery<MyObject> query = realm.where(MyObject.class);
        for (int i=0; i< ids.size(); i++) {
            query = query.equalTo("id", ids.get(i));
            if (i != ids.size() -1) {
                query = query.or();
            }
        }
        return query.findAll();
    } finally {
        if (realm != null) realm.close();
    }
}

Is it really necessary to reassign the output of a query operator to the RealmQuery object? Will this other snippet achieve the same result? (hint: i have removed query = before the calls to .equalTo() and .or())

public RealmResults<MyObject> getMyObjects(List<Integer> ids) {
    Realm realm = null;
    try {
        realm = Realm.getDefaultInstance();
        RealmQuery<MyObject> query = realm.where(MyObject.class);
        for (int i=0; i< ids.size(); i++) {
            query.equalTo("id", ids.get(i));
            if (i != ids.size() -1) {
                query.or();
            }
        }
        return query.findAll();
    } finally {
        if (realm != null) realm.close();
    }
}

Answer 1

The query essentially functions like a builder, so in reality, the returned builder has its state set with the given condition. This means that the assignment is optional.

This is why queries like the structure of the one below work:

query.equalTo(...).equalTo(...).beginGroup()....endGroup().findAll()

The returned parameter is this and not a new RealmQuery.