If I have two equal values for a field. What would be the order of results for sort on that field? Random or ordered by insertion date?
If two documents have equal values for the field you're sorting on, then MongoDB will return the results in the order they are found on disk (ie Natural order)
from MongoDB Documentation :
natural order:
The order in which the database refers to documents on
disk. This is the default sort order. See $natural and Return in
Natural Order.
This may coincide with insertion date in some case, but not all of the time (especially when you perform insertion/deletion on your collection), so you should assume that this is random ordering
Related
So, I read the following definition of indexes from [MongoDB Docs][1].
Indexes support the efficient execution of queries in MongoDB. Without indexes, MongoDB must perform a collection scan, i.e. scan every document in a collection, to select those documents that match the query statement. If an appropriate index exists for a query, MongoDB can use the index to limit the number of documents it must inspect.
Indexes are special data structures that store a small portion of the
collection’s data set in an easy to traverse form. The index stores
the value of a specific field or set of fields, ordered by the value
of the field. The ordering of the index entries supports efficient
equality matches and range-based query operations. In addition,
MongoDB can return sorted results by using the ordering in the index.
I have a sample database with a collection called pets. Pets have the following structure.
{
"_id": ObjectId(123abc123abc)
"name": "My pet's name"
}
I created an index on the name field using the following code.
db.pets.createIndex({"name":1})
What I expect is that the documents in the collection, pets, will be indexed in ascending order based on the name field during queries. The result of this index can potentially reduce the overall query time, especially if a query is strategically structured with available indices in mind. Under that assumption, the following query should return all pets sorted by name in ascending order, but it doesn't.
db.pets.find({},{"_id":0})
Instead, it returns the pets in the order that they were inserted. My conclusion is that I lack a fundamental understanding of how indices work. Can someone please help me to understand?
Yes, it is misunderstanding about how indexes work.
Indexes don't change the output of a query but the way query is processed by the database engine. So db.pets.find({},{"_id":0}) will always return the documents in natural order irrespective of whether there is an index or not.
Indexes will be used only when you make use of them in your query. Thus,
db.pets.find({name : "My pet's name"},{"_id":0}) and db.pets.find({}, {_id : 0}).sort({name : 1}) will use the {name : 1} index.
You should run explain on your queries to check if indexes are being used or not.
You may want to refer the documentation on how indexes work.
https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/indexes/
https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/tutorial/sort-results-with-indexes/
This question already has answers here:
How does MongoDB sort records when no sort order is specified?
(2 answers)
Closed 7 years ago.
In my User collection, MongoDB usually orders each new doc in the same order I create them: the last one created is the last one in the collection. But I have detected another collection where the last one I created has the 6 position between 27 docs.
Why is that?
Which order follows each doc in MongoDB collection?
It's called natural order:
natural order
The order in which the database refers to documents on disk. This is the default sort order. See $natural and Return in Natural Order.
This confirms that in general you get them in the same order you inserted, but that's not guaranteed–as you noticed.
Return in Natural Order
The $natural parameter returns items according to their natural order within the database. This ordering is an internal implementation feature, and you should not rely on any particular structure within it.
Index Use
Queries that include a sort by $natural order do not use indexes to fulfill the query predicate with the following exception: If the query predicate is an equality condition on the _id field { _id: <value> }, then the query with the sort by $natural order can use the _id index.
MMAPv1
Typically, the natural order reflects insertion order with the following exception for the MMAPv1 storage engine. For the MMAPv1 storage engine, the natural order does not reflect insertion order if the documents relocate because of document growth or remove operations free up space which are then taken up by newly inserted documents.
Obviously, like the docs mentioned, you should not rely on this default order (This ordering is an internal implementation feature, and you should not rely on any particular structure within it.).
If you need to sort the things, use the sort solutions.
Basically, the following two calls should return documents in the same order (since the default order is $natural):
db.mycollection.find().sort({ "$natural": 1 })
db.mycollection.find()
If you want to sort by another field (e.g. name) you can do that:
db.mycollection.find().sort({ "name": 1 })
For performance reasons, MongoDB never splits a document on the hard drive.
When you start with an empty collection and start inserting document after document into it, mongoDB will place them consecutively on the disk.
But what happens when you update a document and it now takes more space and doesn't fit into its old position anymore without overlapping the next? In that case MongoDB will delete it and re-append it as a new one at the end of the collection file.
Your collection file now has a hole of unused space. This is quite a waste, isn't it? That's why the next document which is inserted and small enough to fit into that hole will be inserted in that hole. That's likely what happened in the case of your second collection.
Bottom line: Never rely on documents being returned in insertion order. When you care about the order, always sort your results.
MongoDB does not "order" the documents at all, unless you ask it to.
The basic insertion will create an ObjectId in the _id primary key value unless you tell it to do otherwise. This ObjectId value is a special value with "monotonic" or "ever increasing" properties, which means each value created is guaranteed to be larger than the last.
If you want "sorted" then do an explicit "sort":
db.collection.find().sort({ "_id": 1 })
Or a "natural" sort means in the order stored on disk:
db.collection.find().sort({ "$natural": 1 })
Which is pretty much the standard unless stated otherwise or an "index" is selected by the query criteria that will determine the sort order. But you can use that to "force" that order if query criteria selected an index that sorted otherwise.
MongoDB documents "move" when grown, and therefore the _id order is not always explicitly the same order as documents are retrieved.
I could find out more about it thanks to the link Return in Natural Order provided by Ionică Bizău.
"The $natural parameter returns items according to their natural order within the database.This ordering is an internal implementation feature, and you should not rely on any particular structure within it.
Typically, the natural order reflects insertion order with the following exception for the MMAPv1 storage engine. For the MMAPv1 storage engine, the natural order does not reflect insertion order if the documents relocate because of document growth or remove operations free up space which are then taken up by newly inserted documents."
I know I can find documents in sorted order, but can I insert them in sorted order? The data in the database is ordered like set datatype in Redis.
Generally order of records/documents in most (all?) databases is undefined. If you want them returned in a specific order - specify the order when querying. MongoDB is not an exception.
You can't affect what physical location will the new document go to, but you can query by insertion order (see $natural).
Basic question. Does mongodb find command will always return documents in the order they where added to collection? If no how is it possible to implement selection docs in the right order?
Sort? But what if docs where added simultaneously and say created date is the same, but there was an order still.
Well, yes and ... not exactly.
Documents are default sorted by natural order. Which is initially the order the documents are stored on disk, which is indeed the order in which the documents had been added to a collection.
This order however, is not deterministic, as document may be moved on disk once these documents grow after update operations, and can't be fit into current space anymore. This way the initial (insert) order may change.
The way to guarantee insert order sort is sort by {_id : 1} as long as the _id is of type ObjectId. This will return your documents sorted in ascending order.
Write operations do not take place simultaneously. Write locks are imposed in database level (V 2.4 and on). The first four bytes of _id is insert timestamp, and 3 last digits is a random counter used to distinguish (and sort) between ObjectId instances with same timestamp.
_id field is indexed by default
What's the algorithm for MongoDB to calculate the "_id" field. It looks it is incremental.
I'm wondering if it is safe to sort by "_id" field as sort by time the document inserted.
The way ids are generated is described here. Turns out leading bytes are given to the timestamp, so probably the order of ids corresponds to the order of insertion (if we don't consider deviations in time between different machines).
If you need to sort by order of insertion then you need to add your own field for timestamp or incremental counter. In a sharded set-up sorting by _id might not work.