PyMongo - Name must be an instance of Str - mongodb

Question

I'm trying to read and write from a database on MongoDB Atlas and while I can read data from my collections just fine, any attempt to write to a collection causes PyMongo to raise an exception 'name must be an instance of str'.
I'm guessing this is in reference to the MongoClient object but the thing is I am using a connection string. Can anyone help me with what I'm doing wrong?
My code is as follows: (I've got a ton of comments to help me understand better, so please excuse the lack of brevity)
def setattributes(self, rowdict):
""" a function to create a user. Assumes that only a data
dict is provided. strips everything else and updates.
what the data dict contains is your problem.
"""
with UseDatabase(self.dbconfig) as db:
collection = db.database[self.tablename]
locationdict = { #create a corresponding location entry
'email' : rowdict['email'],
'devstate' : 0,
'location' : {
'type': 'Point',
'coordinates' : [ 0, 0 ]
},
'lastseen' : datetime.now()
}
try:
res = db.insertdata(collection, rowdict) #insert user data
except Exception as e:
print("Error adding user to DB : %s" % e)
return False # if you cant insert, return False
try:
loccollection = db.database[self.locationtable]
resloc = db.insertdata(loccollection, locationdict)
except Exception as e: # if the status update failed
db.collection.remove({'email' : rowdict['email']})
#rollback the user insert - atomicity
return False
return True
My Database code is as follows:
class ConnectionError(Exception):
pass
class CredentialsError(Exception):
pass
class UseDatabase:
def __init__(self, config: dict):
self.config = config
def __enter__(self, config = atlas_conn_str):
try:
self.client = MongoClient(config)
self.database = self.client['reviv']
return self
except:
print("Check connection settings")
raise ConnectionError
def __exit__(self, exc_type, exc_value, exc_traceback):
self.client.close()
def insertdata(self, collection, data):
post = data
post_id = self.database[collection].insert_one(post).inserted_id
return post_id
def getdetails(self, collection, emailid):
user = collection.find_one({'email' : emailid}, {'_id' : 0})
return user

Answer 1

In your "setattributes()", you access a pymongo Collection instance by name:
collection = db.database[self.tablename]
Then in "insertdata()" you attempt to do the same thing again, but now "collection" is not a string, it's a Collection instance:
post_id = self.database[collection].insert_one(post).inserted_id
Instead, simply do:
post_id = collection.insert_one(post).inserted_id
By the way, I see that you've written some code to ensure you create and close a MongoClient for each operation. This unnecessarily complicated and it will slow down your application dramatically by requiring a new connection for each operation. As the FAQ says, "Create this client once for each process, and reuse it for all operations. It is a common mistake to create a new client for each request, which is very inefficient."
I suggest you delete your UseDatabase class, make the MongoClient a module global variable, and use the MongoClient directly:
client = MongoClient(atlas_conn_str)
db = client[locationtable]
class C:
def setattributes(self, rowdict):
collection = db[self.tablename]
# ... make rowdict as usual, and then:
res = collection.insert_one(rowdict)
This code is simpler and will run much faster.