Mastering the Shell MongoBerlin

Richard M Kreuter
10gen Inc.
richard@10gen.com

March 25, 2011

Mastering the Shell MongoBerlin

The Mongo Shell

What is the shell?

The mongo shell is a JavaScript interpreter with built-in support for
MongoDB connectivity.

Mastering the Shell MongoBerlin

Whats the shell good for?

Interactive development/prototyping.
Test scripting (cf. MongoDBs own regression framework).
Administrative operations, lightweight scripting.
Learning MongoDB (and teaching it, too).

Mastering the Shell MongoBerlin

Running the Shell

$ mongo
MongoDB shell version: 1.6.4
connecting to: test
> db.people.save({name:"Washington", no: 1});
> db.people.save({name:"Adams", no: 2});
> db.people.save({name:"Jefferson", no: 3});
> for (i=0; i<1024; i++) db.numbers.save({ num: i });

Mastering the Shell MongoBerlin

Running the shell (continued)

You can execute a file of code either by specifying command-line

argument or with the built-in load extension function.
$ mongo foo.js # executes foo.js and exits
$ mongo
MongoDB shell version: 1.6.4
connecting to: test
> load("foo.js") // executes foo.js and returns to prompt

Mastering the Shell MongoBerlin

Running the shell (continued continued)

As of 1.8, you can also use mongo as a shebang interpreter.

$ cat ~/foo.js
#!/Users/kreuter/10gen/mongo/mongo
...
$ ./foo.js

Mastering the Shell MongoBerlin

Shell helpers

The shell has some built-in helpers that resemble the MySQL
shells.
// Change database to "foo"
use foo
// List the collections in "foo"
show collections
Note that these helpers arent strictly JavaScript; theyre sort of
preprocessors available only when the shell is run interactively.
There are proper JavaScript methods for doing these things
programmatically (e.g., db=db.getSisterDB("foo")).

Mastering the Shell MongoBerlin

Completion in interactive mode

The shell supports completion (improved notably in 1.8).

Completion can introspect on JavaScript objects to find
attributes/methods:
db.<TAB> // print methods on the db object
db.people.<TAB> // print methods on the people collection
// etc...

Mastering the Shell MongoBerlin

Command-line editing

The shell uses readline for command completion, history, editing,

etc. (for now, anyway). So it has similar keybindings by default to
those in bash, et. al.

Mastering the Shell MongoBerlin

Getting help

> help // help is a helper...

...
> db.help() // db.help() is a method on the db object
...
> db.collection.help() // a method on the collection

Mastering the Shell MongoBerlin

Working with the shell

The shell runs all queries in SafeMode, i.e., it executes

getLastError and prints any error message after data
manipulations. So, for example,
> db.foo.insert({_id:1});
> db.foo.insert({_id:1});
E11000 duplicate key error index: test.foo.$_id_
dup key: { : 1.0 }

Mastering the Shell MongoBerlin

Working with the shell (continued)

Because the shell uses JavaScript, a little care is called for when
handling types MongoDB supports that JavaScript doesnt:
JavaScripts only number type is double-floats. (Use
NumberLong to construct 64-bit integers.)
Documents having multiple values for the same key arent
supported in JavaScript (but you shouldnt really use these
anyway).
Binary data is represented by the BinData type.
Also, note that in JavaScript, Date(string) returns a string;
you almost always want new Date(string), which returns an
object. (In 1.8, see the ISODate() function.)

Mastering the Shell MongoBerlin

Cursors in the shell

By default, cursors in the shell are printed by iterating the cursor

some number of times, and assigning the variable it to an iterator:

> db.numbers.find()
{ "_id" : ObjectId("4cf91b32e3f85d1561593dfc"), "num" : 0 }
...
has more
> it
{ "_id" : ObjectId("4cf91b32e3f85d1561593e10"), "num" : 20
...
has more

Mastering the Shell MongoBerlin

Cursors in the shell (continued)

The shell supports cursors as first-class objects:
> var cur=db.people.find()
> cur.hasNext()
true
> while (cur.hasNext()) { printjson(cur.next().name); }
"Washington"
"Adams"
"Jefferson"
> var cur2=db.people.find({}, {name:1})
> cur2.forEach(printjson)
{ "_id" : ..., "name" : "Washington" }
{ "_id" : ..., "name" : "Adams" }
{ "_id" : ..., "name" : "Jefferson" }
Mastering the Shell MongoBerlin

Examining JavaScript code

Most of the shells functionality is implemented in JavaScript itself,
with the consequence that you can examine (and so cargo-cult) it
yourself:
> db.people.findOne
function (query, fields) {
var cursor = this._mongo.find(this._fullName,
this._massageObject(query) || {}, fields, -1, 0, 0);
if (!cursor.hasNext())
return null;
var ret = cursor.next();
if (cursor.hasNext())
throw "findOne has more than 1 result!";
if (ret.$err)
throw "error " + tojson(ret);
return ret;
}
Mastering the Shell MongoBerlin

A nifty function

Heres a nifty administrative function (stolen from Scott

Hernandezs talk on the shell):
var cursor = db.coll.find();
var biggest=0;
var doc = {};
cursor.forEach(function (x) {
var size = Object.bsonsize(x);
if (size > biggest) { biggest=size; doc = x; }
});

Mastering the Shell MongoBerlin

Gotchas

JavaScript isnt the fastest language around.

JavaScript lacks features for programming in the large
(modules/packages/namespaces/etc.)
Iterating arrays (in index order) is slow.
Some data types require special care.

Mastering the Shell MongoBerlin

So give the shell another spin!

www.mongodb.org downloads, docs, community

mongodb-user@googlegroups.com mailing list
#mongodb on irc.freenode.net
try.mongodb.org web-based shell
10gen is hiring. Email jobs@10gen.com.
10gen offers support, training, and advising services for
mongodb

Mastering the Shell MongoBerlin