How to remove field conditionally mongoodb - mongodb

Question

I have a collection and its documents look like:
{
_id: ObjectId('111111111122222222223333'),
my_array: [
{
id: ObjectId('777777777788888888889999')
name: 'foo'
},
{
id: ObjectId('77777777778888888888555')
name: 'foo2'
}
//...
]
//more attributes
}
However, some documents have my_array: [{}] (with one element which is an empty array).
How can I add conditionally a projection or remove it?
I have to add it to a mongo pipeline at the end of the query, and I want to get my_array only when it has at least one element which is not an empty object. If there's an empty object remove it.
I tried with $cond and $eq in a projection stage but it is not supported. Any suggestion to solve this?

Answer 1

Suppose you have documents like this with my_array field:
{ "my_array" : [ ] }
{ "my_array" : [ { "a" : 1 } ] } // #(1)
{ "my_array" : null }
{ "some_fld" : "some value" }
{ "my_array" : [ { } ] }
{ "my_array" : [ { "a" : 2 }, { "a" : 3 } ] } // #(2)
And, the following aggregation will filter and the result will have the two documents (1) and (2):
db.collection.aggregate([
{
$match: {
$expr: {
$and: [
{ $eq: [ { $type: "$my_array" }, "array" ] },
{ $gt: [ { $size: "$my_array" }, 0 ] },
{ $ne: [ [{}], "$my_array" ] }
]
}
}
}
])
This also works with a find method:
db.collection.find({
$expr: {
$and: [
{ $eq: [ { $type: "$my_array" }, "array" ] },
{ $gt: [ { $size: "$my_array" }, 0 ] },
{ $ne: [ [{}], "$my_array" ] }
]
}
})
To remove the my_array field, from a document when its empty, then you try this aggregation:
db.collection.aggregate([
{
$addFields: {
my_array: {
$cond: [
{$and: [
{ $eq: [ { $type: "$my_array" }, "array" ] },
{ $gt: [ { $size: "$my_array" }, 0 ] },
{ $ne: [ [{}], "$my_array" ] }
]},
"$my_array",
"$$REMOVE"
]
}
}
}
])
The result:
{ }
{ "my_array" : [ { "a" : 1 } ] }
{ }
{ "a" : 1 }
{ }
{ "my_array" : [ { "a" : 2 }, { "a" : 3 } ] }

Answer 2

You can't do that in a query, however in an aggregations you can add $filter to you pipeline, like so:
db.collection.aggregate([
{
$project: {
my_array: {
$filter: {
input: "$my_array",
as: "elem",
cond: {
$ne: [
{},
"$$elem"
]
}
}
}
}
}
])
Mongo Playground
However unless this is "correct" behavior I suggest you clean up your database, it's much simpler to maintain "proper" structure than to update all your queries everywhere.
You can use this update to remove these objects:
db.collection.update({
"myarray": {}
},
[
{
"$set": {
"my_array": {
$filter: {
input: "$my_array",
as: "elem",
cond: {
$ne: [
{},
"$$elem"
]
}
}
}
}
},
],
{
"multi": false,
"upsert": false
})
Mongo Playground