Insert new fields to document at given array index in MongoDB - mongodb

Question

I have the following document structure in a MongoDB collection :
{
"A" : [ {
"B" : [ { ... } ]
} ]
}
I'd like to update this to :
{
"A" : [ {
"B" : [ { ... } ],
"x" : [],
"y" : { ... }
} ]
}
In other words, I want the "x" and "y" fields to be added to the first element of the "A" array without loosing "B".

Answer 1

Ok as there is only one object in A array you could simply do as below :
Sample Collection Data :
{
"_id" : ObjectId("5e7c3cadc16b5679b4aeec26"),
A:[
{
B: [{ abc: 1 }]
}
]
}
Query :
/** Insert new fields into 'A' array's first object by index 0 */
db.collection.updateOne(
{ "_id" : ObjectId("5e7c3f77c16b5679b4af4caf") },
{ $set: { "A.0.x": [] , "A.0.y" : {abcInY :1 }} }
)
Output :
{
"_id" : ObjectId("5e7c3cadc16b5679b4aeec26"),
"A" : [
{
"B" : [
{
"abc" : 1
}
],
"x" : [],
"y" : {
"abcInY" : 1.0
}
}
]
}
Or Using positional operator $ :
db.collection.updateOne(
{ _id: ObjectId("5e7c3cadc16b5679b4aeec26") , 'A': {$exists : true}},
{ $set: { "A.$.x": [] , "A.$.y" : {abcInY :1 }} }
)
Note : Result will be the same, but functionally when positional operator is used fields x & y are inserted to first object of A array only when A field exists in that documents, if not this positional query would not insert anything (Optionally you can check A is an array condition as well if needed). But when you do updates using index 0 as like in first query if A doesn't exist in document then update would create an A field which is an object & insert fields inside it (Which might cause data inconsistency across docs with two types of A field) - Check below result of 1st query when A doesn't exists.
{
"_id" : ObjectId("5e7c3f77c16b5679b4af4caf"),
"noA" : 1,
"A" : {
"0" : {
"x" : [],
"y" : {
"abcInY" : 1.0
}
}
}
}

Answer 2

However, I think I was able to get anothe#whoami Thanks for the suggestion, I think your first solution should work. However, I think I was able to get another solution to this though I'm not sure if its better or worse (performance wise?) than what you have here. My solution is:
db.coll.update( { "_id" : ObjectId("5e7c4eb3a74cce7fd94a3fe7") }, [ { "$addFields" : { "A" : { "x" : [ 1, 2, 3 ], "y" : { "abc" } } } } ] )
The issue with this is that if "A" has more than one array entry then this will update all elements under "A" which is not something I want. Just out of curiosity is there a way of limiting this solution to only the first entry in "A"?