How do I perform the SQL Join equivalent in MongoDB?
How do I perform the SQL Join equivalent in MongoDB?
For example say you have two collections (users and comments) and I want to pull all the comments with pid=444 along with the user info for each.
comments
{ uid:12345, pid:444, comment="blah" }
{ uid:12345, pid:888, comment="asdf" }
{ uid:99999, pid:444, comment="qwer" }
users
{ uid:12345, name:"john" }
{ uid:99999, name:"mia" }
Is there a way to pull all the comments with a certain field (eg. ...find({pid:444}) ) and the user information associated with each comment in one go?
At the moment, I am first getting the comments which match my criteria, then figuring out all the uid's in that result set, getting the user objects, and merging them with the comment's results. Seems like I am doing it wrong.
As of Mongo 3.2 the answers to this question are mostly no longer correct. The new $lookup operator added to the aggregation pipeline is essentially identical to a left outer join:
https://docs.mongodb.org/master/reference/operator/aggregation/lookup/#pipe._S_lookup
From the docs:
{
$lookup:
{
from: <collection to join>,
localField: <field from the input documents>,
foreignField: <field from the documents of the "from" collection>,
as: <output array field>
}
}
Of course Mongo is not a relational database, and the devs are being careful to recommend specific use cases for $lookup, but at least as of 3.2 doing join is now possible with MongoDB.
This page on the official mongodb site addresses exactly this question:
https://mongodb-documentation.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ecosystem/tutorial/model-data-for-ruby-on-rails.html
When we display our list of stories, we'll need to show the name of the user who posted the story. If we were using a relational database, we could perform a join on users and stores, and get all our objects in a single query. But MongoDB does not support joins and so, at times, requires bit of denormalization. Here, this means caching the 'username' attribute.
Relational purists may be feeling uneasy already, as if we were violating some universal law. But let’s bear in mind that MongoDB collections are not equivalent to relational tables; each serves a unique design objective. A normalized table provides an atomic, isolated chunk of data. A document, however, more closely represents an object as a whole. In the case of a social news site, it can be argued that a username is intrinsic to the story being posted.
We can merge/join all data inside only one collection with a easy function in few lines using the mongodb client console, and now we could be able of perform the desired query. Below a complete example,
.- Authors:
db.authors.insert([
{
_id: 'a1',
name: { first: 'orlando', last: 'becerra' },
age: 27
},
{
_id: 'a2',
name: { first: 'mayra', last: 'sanchez' },
age: 21
}
]);
.- Categories:
db.categories.insert([
{
_id: 'c1',
name: 'sci-fi'
},
{
_id: 'c2',
name: 'romance'
}
]);
.- Books
db.books.insert([
{
_id: 'b1',
name: 'Groovy Book',
category: 'c1',
authors: ['a1']
},
{
_id: 'b2',
name: 'Java Book',
category: 'c2',
authors: ['a1','a2']
},
]);
.- Book lending
db.lendings.insert([
{
_id: 'l1',
book: 'b1',
date: new Date('01/01/11'),
lendingBy: 'jose'
},
{
_id: 'l2',
book: 'b1',
date: new Date('02/02/12'),
lendingBy: 'maria'
}
]);
.- The magic:
db.books.find().forEach(
function (newBook) {
newBook.category = db.categories.findOne( { "_id": newBook.category } );
newBook.lendings = db.lendings.find( { "book": newBook._id } ).toArray();
newBook.authors = db.authors.find( { "_id": { $in: newBook.authors } } ).toArray();
db.booksReloaded.insert(newBook);
}
);
.- Get the new collection data:
db.booksReloaded.find().pretty()
.- Response :)
{
"_id" : "b1",
"name" : "Groovy Book",
"category" : {
"_id" : "c1",
"name" : "sci-fi"
},
"authors" : [
{
"_id" : "a1",
"name" : {
"first" : "orlando",
"last" : "becerra"
},
"age" : 27
}
],
"lendings" : [
{
"_id" : "l1",
"book" : "b1",
"date" : ISODate("2011-01-01T00:00:00Z"),
"lendingBy" : "jose"
},
{
"_id" : "l2",
"book" : "b1",
"date" : ISODate("2012-02-02T00:00:00Z"),
"lendingBy" : "maria"
}
]
}
{
"_id" : "b2",
"name" : "Java Book",
"category" : {
"_id" : "c2",
"name" : "romance"
},
"authors" : [
{
"_id" : "a1",
"name" : {
"first" : "orlando",
"last" : "becerra"
},
"age" : 27
},
{
"_id" : "a2",
"name" : {
"first" : "mayra",
"last" : "sanchez"
},
"age" : 21
}
],
"lendings" : [ ]
}
I hope this lines can help you.
You have to do it the way you described. MongoDB is a non-relational database and doesn't support joins.
With right combination of $lookup, $project and $match, you can join mutiple tables on multiple parameters. This is because they can be chained multiple times.
Suppose we want to do following (reference)
SELECT S.* FROM LeftTable S
LEFT JOIN RightTable R ON S.ID = R.ID AND S.MID = R.MID
WHERE R.TIM > 0 AND S.MOB IS NOT NULL
Step 1: Link all tables
you can $lookup as many tables as you want.
$lookup - one for each table in query
$unwind - correctly denormalises data , else it'd be wrapped in arrays
Python code..
db.LeftTable.aggregate([
# connect all tables
{"$lookup": {
"from": "RightTable",
"localField": "ID",
"foreignField": "ID",
"as": "R"
}},
{"$unwind": "R"}
])
Step 2: Define all conditionals
$project : define all conditional statements here, plus all the variables you'd like to select.
Python Code..
db.LeftTable.aggregate([
# connect all tables
{"$lookup": {
"from": "RightTable",
"localField": "ID",
"foreignField": "ID",
"as": "R"
}},
{"$unwind": "R"},
# define conditionals + variables
{"$project": {
"midEq": {"$eq": ["$MID", "$R.MID"]},
"ID": 1, "MOB": 1, "MID": 1
}}
])
Step 3: Join all the conditionals
$match - join all conditions using OR or AND etc. There can be multiples of these.
$project: undefine all conditionals
Complete Python Code..
db.LeftTable.aggregate([
# connect all tables
{"$lookup": {
"from": "RightTable",
"localField": "ID",
"foreignField": "ID",
"as": "R"
}},
{"$unwind": "$R"},
# define conditionals + variables
{"$project": {
"midEq": {"$eq": ["$MID", "$R.MID"]},
"ID": 1, "MOB": 1, "MID": 1
}},
# join all conditionals
{"$match": {
"$and": [
{"R.TIM": {"$gt": 0}},
{"MOB": {"$exists": True}},
{"midEq": {"$eq": True}}
]}},
# undefine conditionals
{"$project": {
"midEq": 0
}}
])
Pretty much any combination of tables, conditionals and joins can be done in this manner.