MongoDB

MongoDB

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1. MongoDB ─ Overview

MongoDB is a cross-platform, document oriented database that provides, high performance,

high availability, and easy scalability. MongoDB works on concept of collection and document.

Database
Database is a physical container for collections. Each database gets its own set of files on the
file system. A single MongoDB server typically has multiple databases.

Collection
Collection is a group of MongoDB documents. It is the equivalent of an RDBMS table. A
collection exists within a single database. Collections do not enforce a schema. Documents
within a collection can have different fields. Typically, all documents in a collection are of
similar or related purpose.

Document
A document is a set of key-value pairs. Documents have dynamic schema. Dynamic schema
means that documents in the same collection do not need to have the same set of fields or
structure, and common fields in a collection's documents may hold different types of data.

The following table shows the relationship of RDBMS terminology with MongoDB.

RDBMS MongoDB

Database Database

Table Collection

Tuple/Row Document

column Field

Table Join Embedded Documents

Primary Key (Default key _id provided by

Primary Key
mongodb itself)

Database Server and Client

Mysqld/Oracle mongod

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mysql/sqlplus mongo

Sample Document
Following example shows the document structure of a blog site, which is simply a comma
separated key value pair.

{
_id: ObjectId(7df78ad8902c)
title: 'MongoDB Overview',
description: 'MongoDB is no sql database',
by: 'tutorials point',
url: 'http://www.tutorialspoint.com',
tags: ['mongodb', 'database', 'NoSQL'],
likes: 100,
comments: [
{
user:'user1',
message: 'My first comment',
dateCreated: new Date(2011,1,20,2,15),
like: 0
},
{
user:'user2',
message: 'My second comments',
dateCreated: new Date(2011,1,25,7,45),
like: 5
}
]
}

_id is a 12 bytes hexadecimal number which assures the uniqueness of every document. You
can provide _id while inserting the document. If you don’t provide then MongoDB provides a
unique id for every document. These 12 bytes first 4 bytes for the current timestamp, next 3
bytes for machine id, next 2 bytes for process id of MongoDB server and remaining 3 bytes
are simple incremental VALUE.

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2. MongoDB ─ Advantages

Any relational database has a typical schema design that shows number of tables and the
relationship between these tables. While in MongoDB, there is no concept of relationship.

Advantages of MongoDB over RDBMS

 Schema less: MongoDB is a document database in which one collection holds different
documents. Number of fields, content and size of the document can differ from one
document to another.

 Structure of a single object is clear.

 No complex joins.

 Deep query-ability. MongoDB supports dynamic queries on documents using a

document-based query language that's nearly as powerful as SQL.

 Tuning.

 Ease of scale-out: MongoDB is easy to scale.

 Conversion/mapping of application objects to database objects not needed.

 Uses internal memory for storing the (windowed) working set, enabling faster access
of data.

Why Use MongoDB?

 Document Oriented Storage: Data is stored in the form of JSON style documents.
 Index on any attribute
 Replication and high availability
 Auto-sharding
 Rich queries
 Fast in-place updates
 Professional support by MongoDB

Where to Use MongoDB?

 Big Data
 Content Management and Delivery
 Mobile and Social Infrastructure

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3. MongoDB ─ Environment

Let us now see how to install MongoDB on Windows.

Install MongoDB on Windows

To install MongoDB on Windows, first download the latest release of MongoDB
from http://www.mongodb.org/downloads. Make sure you get correct version of MongoDB
depending upon your Windows version. To get your Windows version, open command prompt
and execute the following command.

C:\>wmic os get osarchitecture

OSArchitecture
64-bit
C:\>

32-bit versions of MongoDB only support databases smaller than 2GB and suitable only for
testing and evaluation purposes.

Now extract your downloaded file to c:\ drive or any other location. Make sure the name of
the extracted folder is mongodb-win32-i386-[version] or mongodb-win32-x86_64-[version].
Here [version] is the version of MongoDB download.

Next, open the command prompt and run the following command.

C:\>move mongodb-win64-* mongodb

1 dir(s) moved.
C:\>

In case you have extracted the MongoDB at different location, then go to that path by using
command cd FOOLDER/DIR and now run the above given process.

MongoDB requires a data folder to store its files. The default location for the MongoDB data
directory is c:\data\db. So you need to create this folder using the Command Prompt. Execute
the following command sequence.

C:\>md data
C:\md data\db

If you have to install the MongoDB at a different location, then you need to specify an alternate
path for \data\db by setting the path dbpath in mongod.exe. For the same, issue the
following commands.

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In the command prompt, navigate to the bin directory present in the MongoDB installation
folder. Suppose my installation folder is D:\set up\mongodb

C:\Users\XYZ>d:
D:\>cd "set up"
D:\set up>cd mongodb
D:\set up\mongodb>cd bin
D:\set up\mongodb\bin>mongod.exe --dbpath "d:\set up\mongodb\data"

This will show waiting for connections message on the console output, which indicates that
the mongod.exe process is running successfully.

Now to run the MongoDB, you need to open another command prompt and issue the following
command.

D:\set up\mongodb\bin>mongo.exe
MongoDB shell version: 2.4.6
connecting to: test
>db.test.save( { a: 1 } )
>db.test.find()
{ "_id" : ObjectId(5879b0f65a56a454), "a" : 1 }
>

This will show that MongoDB is installed and run successfully. Next time when you run
MongoDB, you need to issue only commands.

D:\set up\mongodb\bin>mongod.exe --dbpath "d:\set up\mongodb\data"

D:\set up\mongodb\bin>mongo.exe

Install MongoDB on Ubuntu

Run the following command to import the MongoDB public GPG key −

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv 7F0CEB10

Create a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb.list file using the following command.

echo 'deb http://downloads-distro.mongodb.org/repo/ubuntu-upstart dist 10gen'

| sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb.list

Now issue the following command to update the repository −

sudo apt-get update

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Next install the MongoDB by using the following command −

apt-get install mongodb-10gen=2.2.3

In the above installation, 2.2.3 is currently released MongoDB version. Make sure to install
the latest version always. Now MongoDB is installed successfully.

Start MongoDB
sudo service mongodb start

Stop MongoDB
sudo service mongodb stop

Restart MongoDB
sudo service mongodb restart

To use MongoDB run the following command.

mongo

This will connect you to running MongoDB instance.

MongoDB Help
To get a list of commands, type db.help() in MongoDB client. This will give you a list of
commands as shown in the following screenshot.

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MongoDB Statistics
To get stats about MongoDB server, type the command db.stats() in MongoDB client. This
will show the database name, number of collection and documents in the database. Output
of the command is shown in the following screenshot.

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4. MongoDB ─ Data Modelling

Data in MongoDB has a flexible schema.documents in the same collection. They do not need
to have the same set of fields or structure, and common fields in a collection’s documents
may hold different types of data.

Some considerations while designing Schema in MongoDB

 Design your schema according to user requirements.
 Combine objects into one document if you will use them together. Otherwise separate
them (but make sure there should not be need of joins).

 Duplicate the data (but limited) because disk space is cheap as compare to compute
time.

 Do joins while write, not on read.

 Optimize your schema for most frequent use cases.
 Do complex aggregation in the schema.

Example
Suppose a client needs a database design for his blog/website and see the differences
between RDBMS and MongoDB schema design. Website has the following requirements.

 Every post has the unique title, description and url.

 Every post can have one or more tags.

 Every post has the name of its publisher and total number of likes.

 Every post has comments given by users along with their name, message, data-time
and likes.

 On each post, there can be zero or more comments.

In RDBMS schema, design for above requirements will have minimum three tables.

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While in MongoDB schema, design will have one collection post and the following structure:

{
_id: POST_ID
title: TITLE_OF_POST,
description: POST_DESCRIPTION,
by: POST_BY,
url: URL_OF_POST,
tags: [TAG1, TAG2, TAG3],
likes: TOTAL_LIKES,
comments: [
{
user:'COMMENT_BY',
message: TEXT,
dateCreated: DATE_TIME,
like: LIKES
},
{
user:'COMMENT_BY',
message: TEXT,
dateCreated: DATE_TIME,
like: LIKES
}
]
}

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5. MongoDB ─ Create Database

In this chapter, we will see how to create a database in MongoDB.

The use Command

MongoDB use DATABASE_NAME is used to create database. The command will create a
new database if it doesn't exist, otherwise it will return the existing database.

Syntax
Basic syntax of use DATABASE statement is as follows:

use DATABASE_NAME

Example
If you want to create a database with name <mydb>, then use DATABASE statement would
be as follows:

>use mydb
switched to db mydb

To check your currently selected database, use the command db

>db
mydb

If you want to check your databases list, use the command show dbs.

>show dbs
local 0.78125GB
test 0.23012GB

Your created database (mydb) is not present in list. To display database, you need to insert
at least one document into it.

>db.movie.insert({"name":"tutorials point"})
>show dbs
local 0.78125GB
mydb 0.23012GB

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6. MongoDB ─ Drop Database

In this chapter, we will see how to drop a database using MongoDB command.

The dropDatabase() Method

MongoDB db.dropDatabase() command is used to drop a existing database.

Syntax
Basic syntax of dropDatabase() command is as follows:

db.dropDatabase()

This will delete the selected database. If you have not selected any database, then it will
delete default 'test' database.

Example
First, check the list of available databases by using the command, show dbs.

>show dbs
local 0.78125GB
mydb 0.23012GB
test 0.23012GB
>

If you want to delete new database <mydb>, then dropDatabase() command would be as
follows:

>use mydb
switched to db mydb
>db.dropDatabase()
>{ "dropped" : "mydb", "ok" : 1 }
>

Now check list of databases.

>show dbs
local 0.78125GB
test 0.23012GB>

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7. MongoDB ─ Create Collection

In this chapter, we will see how to create a collection using MongoDB.

The createCollection() Method

MongoDB db.createCollection(name, options) is used to create collection.

Syntax
Basic syntax of createCollection() command is as follows:

db.createCollection(name, options)

In the command, name is name of collection to be created. Options is a document and is

used to specify configuration of collection.

Parameter Type Description

Name String Name of the collection to be created

(Optional) Specify options about memory

Options Document
size and indexing

Options parameter is optional, so you need to specify only the name of the collection.
Following is the list of options you can use:

Field Type Description

(Optional) If true, enables a capped collection. Capped

collection is a fixed size collection that automatically
capped Boolean overwrites its oldest entries when it reaches its maximum
size. If you specify true, you need to specify size
parameter also.

(Optional) If true, automatically create index on _id field.

autoIndexID Boolean
Default value is false.

(Optional) Specifies a maximum size in bytes for a capped

size number collection. If capped is true, then you need to specify
this field also.

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(Optional) Specifies the maximum number of documents

max number
allowed in the capped collection.

While inserting the document, MongoDB first checks size field of capped collection, then it
checks max field.

Examples
Basic syntax of createCollection() method without options is as follows:

>use test
switched to db test
>db.createCollection("mycollection")
{ "ok" : 1 }
>

You can check the created collection by using the command show collections.

>show collections
mycollection
system.indexes

The following example shows the syntax of createCollection() method with few important
options:

>db.createCollection("mycol", { capped : true, autoIndexID : true, size : 6142800,

max : 10000 } )
{ "ok" : 1 }
>

In MongoDB, you don't need to create collection. MongoDB creates collection automatically,
when you insert some document.

>db.tutorialspoint.insert({"name" : "tutorialspoint"})
>show collections
mycol
mycollection
system.indexes
tutorialspoint
>

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