How to find min value in mongodb

You can use a combination of sort and limit to emulate min:

> db.foo.insert({a: 1})
> db.foo.insert({a: 2})
> db.foo.insert({a: 3})
> db.foo.find().sort({a: 1}).limit(1) 
{ "_id" : ObjectId("4df8d4a5957c623adae2ab7e"), "a" : 1 }

sort({a: 1}) is an ascending (minimum-first) sort on the a field, and we then only return the first document, which will be the minimum value for that field.

EDIT: note that this is written in the mongo shell, but you can do the same thing from C# or any other language using the appropriate driver methods.

The first

  db.sales.insert([
    { "_id" : 1, "item" : "abc", "price" : 10, "quantity" : 2, "date" : ISODate("2014-01-01T08:00:00Z") },
    { "_id" : 2, "item" : "jkl", "price" : 20, "quantity" : 1, "date" : ISODate("2014-02-03T09:00:00Z") },
    { "_id" : 3, "item" : "xyz", "price" : 5, "quantity" : 5, "date" : ISODate("2014-02-03T09:05:00Z") },
    { "_id" : 4, "item" : "abc", "price" : 10, "quantity" : 10, "date" : ISODate("2014-02-15T08:00:00Z") },
    { "_id" : 5, "item" : "xyz", "price" : 5, "quantity" : 10, "date" : ISODate("2014-02-15T09:05:00Z") }
  ])

The second, find the min value

  db.sales.aggregate(
   [
     {
       $group:
       {
         _id: {},
         minPrice: { $min: "$price" }
       }
     }
   ]
  );

result is

{ "_id" : {  }, "minPrice" : 5 }

You can also use min function like this.

 db.sales.aggregate(
    [
      {
        $group:
        {
          _id: "$item",
          minQuantity: { $min: "$quantity" }
        }
      }
    ]
  )

result are

{ "_id" : "xyz", "minQuantity" : 5 }
{ "_id" : "jkl", "minQuantity" : 1 }
{ "_id" : "abc", "minQuantity" : 2 }

$min is an accumulator operator available only in the $group stage.

UPDATE: Changed in version 3.2: $min is available in the $group and $project stages. In previous versions of MongoDB, $min is available in the $group stage only.

click here for more help

Just want to show how it can be done with official c# driver (since question about mongodb csharp) with one improvement: I am loading only one field, but not entire document if i want just find Min value of that field. Here is complete test case:

[TestMethod]
public void Test()
{
  var _mongoServer = MongoServer.Create("mongodb://localhost:27020");
  var database = _mongoServer.GetDatabase("StackoverflowExamples");
  var col = database.GetCollection("items");

  //Add test data
  col.Insert(new Item() { IntValue = 1, SomeOtherField = "Test" });
  col.Insert(new Item() { IntValue = 2 });
  col.Insert(new Item() { IntValue = 3 });
  col.Insert(new Item() { IntValue = 4 });

  var item = col.FindAs<Item>(Query.And())
  .SetSortOrder(SortBy.Ascending("IntValue"))
  .SetLimit(1)
  .SetFields("IntValue") //here i loading only field that i need
  .Single();
  var minValue = item.IntValue;

  //Check that we found min value of IntValue field
  Assert.AreEqual(1, minValue);
  //Check that other fields are null in the document
  Assert.IsNull(item.SomeOtherField);
  col.RemoveAll();
} 

And Item class :

public class Item
{
   public Item()
   {
     Id = ObjectId.GenerateNewId();
   }

    [BsonId]
    public ObjectId Id { get; set; }
    public int IntValue { get; set; }
    public string SomeOtherField { get; set; }
}

Update: Always trying to move further, so, here is extention method for finding min value within collection:

public static class MongodbExtentions
{
    public static int FindMinValue(this MongoCollection collection, string fieldName)
    {
        var cursor = collection.FindAs<BsonDocument>(Query.And())
                     .SetSortOrder(SortBy.Ascending(fieldName))
                     .SetLimit(1)
                     .SetFields(fieldName);

        var totalItemsCount = cursor.Count();

        if (totalItemsCount == 0)
            throw new Exception("Collection is empty");

        var item = cursor.Single();

        if (!item.Contains(fieldName))
            throw new Exception(String.Format("Field '{0}' can't be find within '{1}' collection", fieldName, collection.Name));

        return item.GetValue(fieldName).AsInt32; // here we can also check for if it can be parsed
    }
}

So above test case with this extention method can be rewrited like this:

[TestMethod]
public void Test()
{
  var _mongoServer = MongoServer.Create("mongodb://localhost:27020");
  var database = _mongoServer.GetDatabase("StackoverflowExamples");
  var col = database.GetCollection("items");

  var minValue = col.FindMinValue("IntValue");

  Assert.AreEqual(1, minValue);
  col.RemoveAll();
}

Hope someone will use it ;).