MongoDB - how to query for a nested item inside a collection? - mongodb

Question

I have some data that looks like this:
[
{
"_id" : ObjectId("4e2f2af16f1e7e4c2000000a"),
"advertisers" : [
{
"created_at" : ISODate("2011-07-26T21:02:19Z"),
"category" : "Infinity Pro Spin Air Brush",
"updated_at" : ISODate("2011-07-26T21:02:19Z"),
"lowered_name" : "conair",
"twitter_name" : "",
"facebook_page_url" : "",
"website_url" : "",
"user_ids" : [ ],
"blog_url" : "",
},
and I was thinking that a query like this would give the id of the advertiser:
var start = new Date(2011, 1, 1);
> var end = new Date(2011, 12, 12);
> db.agencies.find( { "created_at" : {$gte : start , $lt : end} } , { _id : 1 , program_ids : 1 , advertisers { name : 1 } } ).limit(1).toArray();
But my query didn't work. Any idea how I can add the fields inside the nested elements to my list of fields I want to get?
Thanks!

Answer 1

Use dot notation (e.g. advertisers.name) to query and retrieve fields from nested objects:
db.agencies.find({
"advertisers.created_at": {
$gte: start,
$lt: end
}
},
{
_id: 1,
program_ids: 1,
"advertisers.name": 1
}
}).limit(1).toArray();
Reference: Retrieving a Subset of Fields
and Dot Notation

Answer 2

db.agencies.find(
{ "advertisers.created_at" : {$gte : start , $lt : end} } ,
{ program_ids : 1 , advertisers.name : 1 }
).limit(1).pretty();

Answer 3

There is one thing called dot notation that MongoDB provides that allows you to look inside arrays of elements. Using it is as simple as adding a dot for each array you want to enter.
In your case
"_id" : ObjectId("4e2f2af16f1e7e4c2000000a"),
"advertisers" : [
{
"created_at" : ISODate("2011-07-26T21:02:19Z"),
"category" : "Infinity Pro Spin Air Brush",
"updated_at" : ISODate("2011-07-26T21:02:19Z"),
"lowered_name" : "conair",
"twitter_name" : "",
"facebook_page_url" : "",
"website_url" : "",
"user_ids" : [ ],
"blog_url" : "",
},
{ ... }
If you want to go inside the array of advertisers to look for the property created_at inside each one of them, you can simply write the query with the property {'advertisers.created_at': query} like follows
db.agencies.find( { 'advertisers.created_at' : { {$gte : start , $lt : end} ... }