Hello readers, in this tutorial, we will learn how to sort the documents using the sort() method available in the Mongo database.
1. Introduction
If you have installed the MongoDB application (version 3.6) on Windows or Ubuntu operating system and you wish to learn the sort() method then follow the below steps. It is very simple, but before moving further let’s take a look at the Mongo database and its characteristics.
1.1 What is MongoDB?
- MongoDB is a high-performance NoSQL database where each database has collections which in turn has documents. Each document has a different number of fields, size, content, and is stored in a JSON-like format (i.e. Binary JSON (BSN))
- The documents in MongoDB doesn’t need to have a schema defined beforehand. Instead, the fields (i.e. records) can be created on the go
- Data model available within the MongoDB allows developers to represent the hierarchical relationships, store arrays, and other more complex structures easily
- This NoSQL solution often comes with embedding, auto-sharding, and onboard replication for better scalability and high availability
1.1.1 Why MongoDB?
- As a NoSQL type database, MongoDB stores the data in the form of a document. Thus, MongoDB offers more flexibility
- This database supports search by field-name, range queries, and the regular expressions. It often provides queries to return the particular fields inside the documents
- MongoDB offers indexes to improve the search performance within the NoSQL database
- To offer horizontal scalability, MongoDB uses sharding by splitting the data across the many MongoDB occurrences
- Replication: MongoDB can give high availability with the replica sets
1.2 What is a Cursor in MongoDB?
In Mongo world, a cursor is an object that allows developers to iterate through the documents of a Mongo collection. The behavior of cursor allows an automatic iteration across the results of the query; however, developers can explicitly go through the items returned in the cursor object. The below diagram lists 4 documents where the Mongo cursor will point to the first document and then iterate through all the other documents of a collection.
1.2.1 Why Cursor in MongoDB?
Cursor offers:
- A true snapshot of a system i.e. it returns the data in batches and increases the database performance
- It saves system memory by allowing batch inserts and updates
- Intelligibility and Clarity on the ad-hoc and complex queries of the sequential nature having large result sets and low consistency requirements
- Openness to work on small batches of data as developers don’t need to wait for the processing and download of the complete record-set
2. MongoDB sort() Example
In this tutorial, we will learn how to handle the cursor.sort() method provided by the Mongo database.
2.1 sort() method in the Mongo database
In the Mongo universe, the sort() method styles the documents of a Mongo collection based on a particular field of a document. The cursor.sort() method has the following prototype form:
Mongo database ‘map()’ Syntax
> db.collection_name.find(<query_string>). sort( { <field_key>: 1 or -1 } )
Where:
- The
query_stringin thefind()method is an optional input argument that retrieves the documents from a collection on the basis of a specified choice criteria - The
field_keyis a required input argument which represents a particular field of a document followed by a sorting order. This sorting order is either defined as1for ascending or-1for descending
Do remember, the default value of the sort() method is 1 i.e. If developers do not specify the sorting preference, the method will display documents in an ascending order.
2.2 Practical usage
Let’s understand the implementation of this method with the help of the sample snippets.
2.2.1 Start MongoDB
Start a standalone mongod instance as shown below.
2.2.2 Connect to the Mongo Instance
Connect with the mongo shell to make a connection with the MongoDB instance on the port 27017 as shown below.
2.2.3 Create Mongo database and collection
To begin with the implementation, we will need to create a sample database and collection. The below script creates a database called bakery with a collection of products. Open the Mongo terminal and execute the script.
Database & Collection creation script
> use bakery
> db.products.insertMany( [
{ _id: 1, item: { category: "cake", type: "chiffon" }, amount: 10 },
{ _id: 2, item: { category: "cookies", type: "chocolate chip" }, amount: 50 },
{ _id: 3, item: { category: "cookies", type: "chocolate chip" }, amount: 15 },
{ _id: 4, item: { category: "cake", type: "lemon" }, amount: 30 },
{ _id: 5, item: { category: "cake", type: "carrot" }, amount: 20 },
{ _id: 6, item: { category: "brownies", type: "blondie" }, amount: 10 }
] )
The script gives the below output.
2.2.4 Check Mongo database and collection
If the script works well, the database and the collection will be shown in the Mongo Workbench. Using the db.collection_name.find() command the documents of a collection will be shown as below.
2.2.5 Implementation of ‘sort()’ method
As seen in Fig. 5, the Mongo query returns the documents in an undefined manner. Now, go back to the Mongo shell and use the sort() method to understand it’s practical implementation in the Mongo world. The following Mongo database command can be used.
Query 1
> db.products.find().sort( { "item.category": 1 } )
As shown in Fig. 6, the Query 1 snippet will return the following Mongo documents in an ascending order.
Let’s say developers want to return the documents by specifying a query string. They can do this by simply appending the query_string in the find() method. The following Mongo database command can be used.
Query 2
> db.products.find( { "item.category": "cake" } ).sort( { "amount": -1 } )
As shown in Fig. 7, the Query 2 snippet will return the following Mongo documents that match the specified choice criteria in a descending order.
If developers want to return the documents by sorting the multiple fields i.e. item.category field in an ascending order and item.type field in a descending order, the following Mongo database command can be used.
Query 3
> db.products.find().sort({ "item.category": 1, "item.type": -1 } )
As shown in Fig. 8, the Query 3 classify the documents first by the item.category field in an ascending order, and then within each category, by the item.type field in a descending order.
That’s all for this post. Happy Learning!!
3. Conclusion
In this tutorial, we learned about the sort() method of the Mongo database. Developers can download the sample commands in the Downloads section.
4. Download the Eclipse Project
This was an example of the sort() method available in the Mongo database.
You can download the full source code of this example here: CodeSnippet
