We are planning on using MongoDB _id as a key that we would provide to the client. Therefore, the requirement is that this key should not change if we ever need to move the data from one collection to another. The copy will be performed using db.copyDatabase() or mongoimport.
One of the ways in which data can be copied from one collection to another is iterating through the documents in the first collection(C1) and inserting these documents in the second collection(C2). In this case _id should remain the same(in C2) because it would be present in the documents(of C1) being inserted(same as the case in which we would provide an _id ourselves).
However, if there is an alternate way in which documents are copied, the _id might change since it depends on :
(1) The UNIX timestamp
(2) Machine identifier
(3) ProcessId
(**This should only happen if MongoDB while copying removes _id from documents in C1 and regenerated them while inserting into C2?)
We want the _id values to be same irrespective of the location of the destination collection:
(1)within same database
(2)different database - same machine
(3)different database - different machine)
Thanks
No, the _id numbers will not change.
A new ObjectId is generated when a document without an _id field is inserted into the database. When you insert a document which already has an _id field, MongoDB won't touch it.
The timestamp, machine identifier and processID refer to those where the ObjectID was generated. This can be a database server, but it can also be generated by the MongoDB driver on the application server. In that case MongoDB will not change it on its own.
By the way: The _id can be an auto-generated ObjectId, but it doesn't have to. You can also use any other value as _id, as long as you can guarantee that it's unique. So when your data already has a natural key, you can use this as _id when you want to.
Related
Since I will be listing my full database on /bots, and I want to use id instead of _id (discord uses id for everything, so I'm accustomed with id and not _id)
I don't even want to save id as _id in the database. So any idea what to do?
This is not possible!
MongoDB automatically creates an _id for every document that gets inserted into a database.
This is there in order to give you a one-to-one value that you will be able to use to identify each document.
The id also contains a timestamp to when you inserted the document which then can be used to optimize queries using indexes.
This is also a best practice to send the _id to the user (even if it's mapped to an id field) to then be able to query more efficiently and also to not expose their Discord Id to everyone.
Hope I could answer your question.
You could read more about it here:
https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/core/document/#the-id-field
How to remove _id in MongoDB and replace with another field as a Primary Key?
I would like to encode some meaning behinds first N characters of every document ID i.e. make first three characters determine a document type sensible to the system being used in.
You can have a custom _id when you insert the document. If the document to be inserted doesn't contain _id, then MongoDB will insert a ObejctId for you.
The _id can be of any type but keeping it uniform for all the documents makes sense if you are accessing from application layer.
You can refer one of the old questions at SO - How to generate unique object id in mongodb
Is there a way I can find the last inserted document and the field, i.e. _id or id such that I can increment and use when inserting a new document?
The issue is that I create my own id count, but I do not store this, now I've deleted records, I cannot seem to add new records because I am attempting to use the same id.
There is no way to check insertion order in MongoDB, because the database does not keep any metadata in the collections regading the documents.
If your _id field is generated server-side then you need to have a very good algorithm for this value in order to provide collision avoidance and uniqueness while at the same time following any sequential constraints that you might have.
Lets say you have a collection with a field called "primary_key",
{"primary_key":"1234", "name":"jimmy", "lastname":"page"}
and I have an index on "primary_key".
This collection has millions of rows, I want to see how expensive is to change primary_key for one of the records. Does it trigger a reindex of the entire table? or does it just reindex the changed record? in either case is that expensive to do?
Updating an indexed field in mongodb causes an update of the index (or indices if you have more than one) that use it. It does not "reindex". Shouldn't be all that expensive - effectively you will delete the old entry and insert a new one.
This document has a fair amount of detail on mongodb indexes:
http://docs.mongodb.org/master/MongoDB-indexes-guide.pdf
BTW, keep in mind that there is one special field, _id, that mongodb uses as it's primary key
_id
A field required in every MongoDB document. The _id field must have a unique value. You can think of the _id field as the document’s
primary key. If you create a new document without an _id field,
MongoDB automatically creates the field and assigns a unique BSON
ObjectId.
You cannot update the _id field.
Lets say you have a collection with a field called "primary_key",
{"primary_key":"1234", "name":"jimmy", "lastname":"page"}
and I have an index on "primary_key".
This collection has millions of rows, I want to see how expensive is to change primary_key for one of the records. Does it trigger a reindex of the entire table? or does it just reindex the changed record? in either case is that expensive to do?
Updating an indexed field in mongodb causes an update of the index (or indices if you have more than one) that use it. It does not "reindex". Shouldn't be all that expensive - effectively you will delete the old entry and insert a new one.
This document has a fair amount of detail on mongodb indexes:
http://docs.mongodb.org/master/MongoDB-indexes-guide.pdf
BTW, keep in mind that there is one special field, _id, that mongodb uses as it's primary key
_id
A field required in every MongoDB document. The _id field must have a unique value. You can think of the _id field as the document’s
primary key. If you create a new document without an _id field,
MongoDB automatically creates the field and assigns a unique BSON
ObjectId.
You cannot update the _id field.