Golang official MongoDB driver ObjectID weird behavior - mongodb

Question

I am trying to use the official mongodb driver in golang and am seeing something unexpected.
If I have a struct like
type User struct {
ID primitive.ObjectID `json:"id" bson:"_id"`
Name string `json:"name" bson:"name"`
Email string `json:"email" bson:"email"`
}
I create a new instance of this with Name and Email but omit ID expecting that the DB will fill this with its value. Instead it uses all zeroes and so the second and so on inserts fail with
multiple write errors: [{write errors: [{E11000 duplicate key error collection: collection.name index: _id_ dup key: { : ObjectId('000000000000000000000000') }}]}, {<nil>}]
If I use a *primitive.ObjectID I get the same class of error only on null instead of zeroes
multiple write errors: [{write errors: [{E11000 duplicate key error collection: collection.name index: _id_ dup key: { : null }}]}, {<nil>}]
It doesn't matter if I use the omitempty directive or not, same result.
If I omit the ID field entirely, it works, but then my struct doesn't have that data on it.
Is there a way to have the DB handle the ID? Or MUST I explicitly call the NewObjectID() function on the struct?

Answer 1

It doesn't matter if I use the omitempty directive or not, same result.
omitempty tag on ID should work. For example:
type User struct {
ID primitive.ObjectID `json:"id" bson:"_id,omitempty"`
Name string `json:"name" bson:"name"`
Email string `json:"email" bson:"email"`
}
collection.InsertOne(context.Background(), User{Name:"Foo", Email:"Baz"})
If you don't specify the omitepmty tag, then the behaviour that you observed is just Go structs behaviour; whereby if any of struct fields are omitted it will be zero-valued. In this case because you have specified the field type to be primitive.ObjectID, ObjectId('000000000000000000000000') is the zero value.
This is the reason why you need to generate a value first before inserting, i.e.:
collection.InsertOne(context.Background(),
User{ ID: primitive.NewObjectID(),
Name: "Foo",
Email: "Bar"})
Is there a way to have the DB handle the ID?
Technically, it's the MongoDB driver that automatically generates the ObjectId if it's not supplied before sending to server.
You can try to use bson.M instead of a struct when inserting to leave out the _id field, i.e.
collection.InsertOne(context.Background(),
bson.M{"name":"Foo", "email":"Bar"})
Code snippet above is written using mongo-go-driver v1.3.x

Answer 2

The omitempty struct tag should work:
type User struct {
ID primitive.ObjectID `json:"id" bson:"_id,omitempty"`
Name string `json:"name" bson:"name"`
Email string `json:"email" bson:"email"`
}
The primitive.ObjectID type implements the bsoncodec.Zeroer interface, so it should be omitted from the document if it's the empty object ID (all 0's) and the driver will generate a new one for you. Can you try this and post the output?