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ECMAScript Next CRUD

Let’s take a look at the CRUD operations from the perspective of ESNext. In this guide we will be using the same examples as in the general CRUD specification overview but rewrite them to use the new ESNext features. For all method options refer to the main CRUD tutorial.

CRUD: CRUD Specification.

This reference also omits methods that no longer make sense when using ESNext such as the each and forEach methods.

Inserting Documents

The insertOne and insertMany methods exist on the Collection class and are used to insert documents into MongoDB. Code speaks a thousand words so let’s see two simple examples of inserting documents.

const MongoClient = require('mongodb').MongoClient;
const assert = require('assert');

const url = 'mongodb://localhost:27017';
const dbName = 'myproject';

(async function() {
  const client = new MongoClient(url);

  try {
    await client.connect();
    console.log("Connected correctly to server");

    const db = client.db(dbName);

    // Insert a single document
    let r = await db.collection('inserts').insertOne({a:1});
    assert.equal(1, r.insertedCount);

    // Insert multiple documents
    r = await db.collection('inserts').insertMany([{a:2}, {a:3}]);
    assert.equal(2, r.insertedCount);
  } catch (err) {
    console.log(err.stack);
  }

  // Close connection
  client.close();
})();

Let’s look at a simple example where we are writing to a replicaset and we wish to ensure that we serialize a passed in function as well as have the server assign the _id for each document.

const MongoClient = require('mongodb').MongoClient;
const assert = require('assert');

const url = 'mongodb://localhost:27017';
const dbName = 'myproject';

(async function() {
  const client = new MongoClient(url);

  try {
    await client.connect();
    console.log("Connected correctly to server");

    const db = client.db(dbName);

    // Insert a single document
    const r = await db.collection('inserts').insertOne({
        a:1,
        b: function() { return 'hello'; }
      }, {
        w: 'majority',
        wtimeout: 10000,
        serializeFunctions: true,
        forceServerObjectId: true
      }
    );

    assert.equal(1, r.insertedCount);
  } catch (err) {
    console.log(err.stack);
  }

  // Close connection
  client.close();
})();

That wraps up the insert methods. Next let’s look at the update methods.

Updating Documents

The updateOne and updateMany methods exist on the Collection class and are used to update and upsert documents into MongoDB. Let’s look at a couple of usage examples.

const MongoClient = require('mongodb').MongoClient;
const assert = require('assert');

const url = 'mongodb://localhost:27017';
const dbName = 'myproject';

(async function() {
  const client = new MongoClient(url);

  try {
    await client.connect();
    console.log("Connected correctly to server");

    const db = client.db(dbName);
    const col = db.collection('updates');
    let r;

    // Insert multiple documents
    r = await col.insertMany([{a:1}, {a:2}, {a:2}]);
    assert.equal(3, r.insertedCount);

    // Update a single document
    r = await col.updateOne({a:1}, {$set: {b: 1}});
    assert.equal(1, r.matchedCount);
    assert.equal(1, r.modifiedCount);

    // Update multiple documents
    r = await col.updateMany({a:2}, {$set: {b: 1}});
    assert.equal(2, r.matchedCount);
    assert.equal(2, r.modifiedCount);

    // Upsert a single document
    r = await col.updateOne({a:3}, {$set: {b: 1}}, {upsert: true});
    assert.equal(0, r.matchedCount);
    assert.equal(1, r.upsertedCount);
  } catch (err) {
    console.log(err.stack);
  }

  // Close connection
  client.close();
})();

Removing Documents

The deleteOne and deleteMany methods exist on the Collection class and are used to remove documents from MongoDB. Let’s look at a couple of usage examples.

const MongoClient = require('mongodb').MongoClient;
const assert = require('assert');

const url = 'mongodb://localhost:27017';
const dbName = 'myproject';

(async function() {
  const client = new MongoClient(url);

  try {
    await client.connect();
    console.log("Connected correctly to server");

    const db = client.db(dbName);

    // Get the removes collection
    const col = db.collection('removes');
    let r;

    // Insert multiple documents
    r = await col.insertMany([{a:1}, {a:2}, {a:2}]);
    assert.equal(3, r.insertedCount);

    // Remove a single document
    r = await col.deleteOne({a:1});
    assert.equal(1, r.deletedCount);

    // Remove multiple documents
    r = await col.deleteMany({a:2});
    assert.equal(2, r.deletedCount);
  } catch (err) {
    console.log(err.stack);
  }

  // Close connection
  client.close();
})();

findOneAndUpdate, findOneAndDelete and findOneAndReplace

The three methods findOneAndUpdate, findOneAndDelete and findOneAndReplace are special commands that allow the user to update or upsert a document and have the modified or existing document returned. They come at a cost because the operations take a write lock for the duration of the operation as they need to ensure the modification is atomic. Let’s look at findOneAndUpdate first using an example.

const MongoClient = require('mongodb').MongoClient;
const assert = require('assert');

const url = 'mongodb://localhost:27017';
const dbName = 'myproject';

(async function() {
  const client = new MongoClient(url);

  try {
    await client.connect();
    console.log("Connected correctly to server");

    const db = client.db(dbName);

    // Get the findAndModify collection
    const col = db.collection('findAndModify');
    let r;

    // Insert multiple documents
    r = await col.insert([{a:1}, {a:2}, {a:2}]);
    assert.equal(3, r.result.n);

    // Modify and return the modified document
    r = await col.findOneAndUpdate({a:1}, {$set: {b: 1}}, {
      returnDocument: 'after',
      sort: [['a',1]],
      upsert: true
    });
    assert.equal(1, r.value.b);

  } catch (err) {
    console.log(err.stack);
  }

  // Close connection
  client.close();
})();

The findOneAndDelete function is especially defined to help remove a document. Let’s look at an example of usage.

const MongoClient = require('mongodb').MongoClient;
const assert = require('assert');

const url = 'mongodb://localhost:27017';
const dbName = 'myproject';

(async function() {
  const client = new MongoClient(url);

  try {
    await client.connect();
    console.log("Connected correctly to server");

    const db = client.db(dbName);

    // Get the findAndModify collection
    const col = db.collection('findAndModify');
    let r;

    // Insert multiple documents
    r = await col.insert([{a:1}, {a:2}, {a:2}]);
    assert.equal(3, r.result.n);

    // Remove a document from MongoDB and return it
    r = await col.findOneAndDelete({a:1});
    assert.ok(r.value.b == null);
  } catch (err) {
    console.log(err.stack);
  }

  // Close connection
  client.close();
})();

BulkWrite

The bulkWrite function allows for a simple set of bulk operations to be done in a non fluent way, as compared with the bulk API discussed next. Let’s look at an example.

const MongoClient = require('mongodb').MongoClient;
const assert = require('assert');

const url = 'mongodb://localhost:27017';
const dbName = 'myproject';

(async function() {
  const client = new MongoClient(url);

  try {
    await client.connect();
    console.log("Connected correctly to server");

    const db = client.db(dbName);

    // Get the collection
    const col = db.collection('bulk_write');

    const r = await col.bulkWrite([
        { insertOne: { document: { a: 1 } } },
        { updateOne: { filter: {a:2}, update: {$set: {a:2}}, upsert:true } },
        { updateMany: { filter: {a:2}, update: {$set: {a:2}}, upsert:true } },
        { deleteOne: { filter: {c:1} } },
        { deleteMany: { filter: {c:1} } },
        { replaceOne: { filter: {c:3}, replacement: {c:4}, upsert:true}}
      ],
      {ordered:true, w:1}
    );
    assert.equal(1, r.insertedCount);
    assert.equal(1, Object.keys(r.insertedIds).length);
    assert.equal(1, r.matchedCount);
    assert.equal(0, r.modifiedCount);
    assert.equal(0, r.deletedCount);
    assert.equal(2, r.upsertedCount);
    assert.equal(2, Object.keys(r.upsertedIds).length);
  } catch (err) {
    console.log(err.stack);
  }

  // Close connection
  client.close();
})();

This covers the basic write operations. Let’s have a look at the Bulk write operations next.

Bulk Write Operations

The bulk write operations make it easy to write groups of operations together to MongoDB. There are some caveats and to get the best performance you need to be running against MongoDB 2.6 or higher, which supports the new write commands. Bulk operations are split into ordered and unordered bulk operations. An ordered bulk operation guarantees the order of execution of writes while the unordered bulk operation makes no assumptions about the order of execution. In the Node.js driver the unordered bulk operations will group operations according to type and write them in parallel. Let’s have a look at how to build an ordered bulk operation.

const MongoClient = require('mongodb').MongoClient;
const assert = require('assert');

const url = 'mongodb://localhost:27017';
const dbName = 'myproject';

(async function() {
  const client = new MongoClient(url);

  try {
    await client.connect();
    console.log("Connected correctly to server");

    const db = client.db(dbName);

    // Get the collection
    const col = db.collection('bulkops');

    // Create ordered bulk, for unordered initializeUnorderedBulkOp()
    const bulk = col.initializeOrderedBulkOp();
    // Insert 10 documents
    for(let i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
      bulk.insert({a: i});
    }

    // Next perform some upserts
    for(let i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
      bulk.find({b:i}).upsert().updateOne({b:1});
    }

    // Finally perform a remove operation
    bulk.find({b:1}).deleteOne();

    // Execute the bulk with a journal write concern
    const result = await bulk.execute();
  } catch (err) {
    console.log(err.stack);
  }

  // Close connection
  client.close();
})();

We will not cover the results object here as it’s documented in the driver API. The Bulk API handles all the splitting of operations into multiple writes.

There are some important things to keep in mind when using the bulk API and especially the ordered bulk API mode. The write commands are insert, update and remove. They will be serially executed in the order they are added, creating a new operation for each switch in types. If you have the following series of operations,

Insert {a:1}
Update {a:1} to {a:1, b:1}
Insert {a:2}
Remove {b:1}
Insert {a:3}

This will result in the driver issuing 5 write commands to the server:

Insert Command with {a:1}
Update Command {a:1} to {a:1, b:1}
Insert Command with {a:2}
Remove Command with {b:1}
Insert Command with {a:3}

If instead you order your operations as follows,

Insert {a:1}
Insert {a:2}
Insert {a:3}
Update {a:1} to {a:1, b:1}
Remove {b:1}

The write commands issued by the driver will be,

Insert Command with {a:1}, {a:2}, {a:3}
Update Command {a:1} to {a:1, b:1}
Remove Command with {b:1}

Allowing for a more efficient and faster bulk write operation.

For unordered bulk operations this is not important as the driver sorts operations by type and executes them in parallel.

This covers write operations for MongoDB. Let’s look at querying for documents next.

Read Methods

The main methods for querying the database are find and aggregate. In this CRUD tutorial we will focus on find.

The find method returns a cursor that allows us to operate on the data. The cursor also implements the Node.js 0.10.x or higher stream interface, allowing us to pipe the results to other streams.

Let’s look at a simple find example that materializes all the documents from a query using the toArray method but limits the number of returned results to 2 documents.

const MongoClient = require('mongodb').MongoClient;
const assert = require('assert');

const url = 'mongodb://localhost:27017';
const dbName = 'myproject';

(async function() {
  const client = new MongoClient(url);

  try {
    await client.connect();
    console.log("Connected correctly to server");

    const db = client.db(dbName);

    // Get the collection
    const col = db.collection('find');

    // Insert multiple documents
    const r = await col.insertMany([{a:1}, {a:1}, {a:1}]);
    assert.equal(3, r.insertedCount);

    // Get first two documents that match the query
    const docs = await col.find({a:1}).limit(2).toArray();
    assert.equal(2, docs.length);
  } catch (err) {
    console.log(err.stack);
  }

  // Close connection
  client.close();
})();

Next let’s take a look at the next method and how we can iterate over the cursor in ECMAScript 6. The new async/await commands allow for what is arguably a much cleaner and easier to read iteration code.

const MongoClient = require('mongodb').MongoClient;
const assert = require('assert');

const url = 'mongodb://localhost:27017';
const dbName = 'myproject';

(async function() {
  const client = new MongoClient(url);

  try {
    await client.connect();
    console.log("Connected correctly to server");

    const db = client.db(dbName);

    // Get the collection
    const col = db.collection('find');

    // Insert multiple documents
    const r = await col.insertMany([{a:1}, {a:1}, {a:1}]);
    assert.equal(3, r.insertedCount);

    // Get the cursor
    const cursor = col.find({a:1}).limit(2);

    // Iterate over the cursor
    while(await cursor.hasNext()) {
      const doc = await cursor.next();
      console.dir(doc);
    }
  } catch (err) {
    console.log(err.stack);
  }

  // Close connection
  client.close();
})();

Executing Commands

The Db.command method also returns a Promise allowing us to leverage async/await for clear and concise code. Below is an example calling the buildInfo method.

const MongoClient = require('mongodb').MongoClient;
const assert = require('assert');

const url = 'mongodb://localhost:27017';
const dbName = 'myproject';

(async function() {
  const client = new MongoClient(url);

  try {
    await client.connect();
    console.log("Connected correctly to server");

    const db = client.db(dbName);

    // Use the admin database for the operation
    const adminDb = db.admin();

    // Retrieve the build information using the admin command
    await adminDb.command({buildInfo:1})
  } catch (err) {
    console.log(err.stack);
  }

  // Close connection
  client.close();
})();

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