mongoDB distict problems - mongodb

Question

It's one of my data as JSON format:
{
"_id" : ObjectId("5bfdb412a80939b6ed682090"),
"accounts" : [
{
"_id" : ObjectId("5bf106eee639bd0df4bd8e05"),
"accountType" : "DDA",
"productName" : "DDA1"
},
{
"_id" : ObjectId("5bf106eee639bd0df4bd8df8"),
"accountType" : "VSA",
"productName" : "VSA1"
},
{
"_id" : ObjectId("5bf106eee639bd0df4bd8df9"),
"accountType" : "VSA",
"productName" : "VSA2"
}
]
}
I want to make a query to get all productName(no duplicate) of accountType = VSA.
I write a mongo query:
db.Collection.distinct("accounts.productName", {"accounts.accountType": "VSA" })
I expect: ['VSA1', 'VSA2']
I get: ['DDA','VSA1', 'VSA2']
Anybody knows why the query doesn't work in distinct?

Answer 1

Second parameter of distinct method represents:
A query that specifies the documents from which to retrieve the distinct values.
But the thing is that you showed only one document with nested array of elements so whole document will be returned for your condition "accounts.accountType": "VSA".
To fix that you have to use Aggregation Framework and $unwind nested array before you apply the filtering and then you can use $group with $addToSet to get unique values. Try:
db.col.aggregate([
{
$unwind: "$accounts"
},
{
$match: {
"accounts.accountType": "VSA"
}
},
{
$group: {
_id: null,
uniqueProductNames: { $addToSet: "$accounts.productName" }
}
}
])
which prints:
{ "_id" : null, "uniqueProductNames" : [ "VSA2", "VSA1" ] }