MongoDB Insert Issue - mongodb

Question

This is from MongoDB.
I am following this tutorial.
I have the collection as shown below:
$ show collections
mycol
mycollection
system.indexes
test
tutorialspoint
Then when I attempt to insert a record in to the collection, using the syntax below, I get the error:
2014-04-18T08:03:55.168-0400 SyntaxError: Unexpected token ILLEGAL
db.mycol.insert({
_id: ObjectId(7df78ad8902c),
title: 'MongoDB Overview',
description: 'MongoDB is no sql database',
by: 'tutorials point',
url: 'http://www.tutorialspoint.com',
tags: ['mongodb', 'database', 'NoSQL'],
likes: 100
})
Below is the copy/paste from mongodb
db.mycol.insert({
... _id: ObjectId(7df78ad8902c),
... title: 'MongoDB Overview',
... description: 'MongoDB is no sql database',
... by: 'tutorials point',
... url: 'http://www.tutorialspoint.com',
... tags: ['mongodb', 'database', 'NoSQL'],
... likes: 100
... })
2014-04-18T08:03:55.168-0400 SyntaxError: Unexpected token ILLEGAL

Answer 1

Try the insert without the _id field. This is automatically generated by Mongodb.
Like this:
db.mycol.insert({
title: 'MongoDBOverview',
description: 'MongoDBisnosqldatabase',
by: 'tutorialspoint',
url: 'http: //www.tutorialspoint.com',
tags: [
'mongodb',
'database',
'NoSQL'
],
likes: 100
});
If you want to use the _id field:
Mongodb docs: Insert a document using the _id field
Ex: _id: 10
The value of _id must be unique within the collection to avoid
duplicate key error.

Answer 2

The value needs to be in quotes. Also, the string in the example is the wrong length. Insert something without specifying the _id field, then do a db.mycol.find() to see the correct format. The field is 12 bytes according to the documentation. The 24-character string is using 2 hex characters per byte. (NOTE: I am also a mongoDB noob, so I am sure there may be flaws with this answer.)