[collections] MongoDB query multiple collections at once

users
{
 "_id":"12345",
 "admin":1
},
{
 "_id":"123456789",
 "admin":0
}

posts
{
 "content":"Some content",
 "owner_id":"12345",
 "via":"facebook"
},
{
 "content":"Some other content",
 "owner_id":"123456789",
 "via":"facebook"
}

Here is a sample from my mongodb. I want to get all the posts which has "via" attribute equal to "facebook" and posted by an admin ("admin":1). I couldn't figure out how to acquire this query. Since mongodb is not a relational database, I couldn't do a join operation. What could be the solution ?

You can use $lookup ( multiple ) to get the records from multiple collections:

Example:

If you have more collections ( I have 3 collections for demo here, you can have more than 3 ). and I want to get the data from 3 collections in single object:

The collection are as:

db.doc1.find().pretty();

{
    "_id" : ObjectId("5901a4c63541b7d5d3293766"),
    "firstName" : "shubham",
    "lastName" : "verma"
}

db.doc2.find().pretty();

{
    "_id" : ObjectId("5901a5f83541b7d5d3293768"),
    "userId" : ObjectId("5901a4c63541b7d5d3293766"),
    "address" : "Gurgaon",
    "mob" : "9876543211"
}

db.doc3.find().pretty();

{
    "_id" : ObjectId("5901b0f6d318b072ceea44fb"),
    "userId" : ObjectId("5901a4c63541b7d5d3293766"),
    "fbURLs" : "http://www.facebook.com",
    "twitterURLs" : "http://www.twitter.com"
}

Now your query will be as below:

db.doc1.aggregate([
    { $match: { _id: ObjectId("5901a4c63541b7d5d3293766") } },
    {
        $lookup:
        {
            from: "doc2",
            localField: "_id",
            foreignField: "userId",
            as: "address"
        }
    },
    {
        $unwind: "$address"
    },
    {
        $project: {
            __v: 0,
            "address.__v": 0,
            "address._id": 0,
            "address.userId": 0,
            "address.mob": 0
        }
    },
    {
        $lookup:
        {
            from: "doc3",
            localField: "_id",
            foreignField: "userId",
            as: "social"
        }
    },
    {
        $unwind: "$social"
    },

  {   
    $project: {      
           __v: 0,      
           "social.__v": 0,      
           "social._id": 0,      
           "social.userId": 0
       }
 }

]).pretty();

Then Your result will be:

{
    "_id" : ObjectId("5901a4c63541b7d5d3293766"),
    "firstName" : "shubham",
    "lastName" : "verma",

    "address" : {
        "address" : "Gurgaon"
    },
    "social" : {
        "fbURLs" : "http://www.facebook.com",
        "twitterURLs" : "http://www.twitter.com"
    }
}

If you want all records from each collections then you should remove below line from query:

{
            $project: {
                __v: 0,
                "address.__v": 0,
                "address._id": 0,
                "address.userId": 0,
                "address.mob": 0
            }
        }

{   
        $project: {      
               "social.__v": 0,      
               "social._id": 0,      
               "social.userId": 0
           }
     }

After removing above code you will get total record as:

{
    "_id" : ObjectId("5901a4c63541b7d5d3293766"),
    "firstName" : "shubham",
    "lastName" : "verma",
    "address" : {
        "_id" : ObjectId("5901a5f83541b7d5d3293768"),
        "userId" : ObjectId("5901a4c63541b7d5d3293766"),
        "address" : "Gurgaon",
        "mob" : "9876543211"
    },
    "social" : {
        "_id" : ObjectId("5901b0f6d318b072ceea44fb"),
        "userId" : ObjectId("5901a4c63541b7d5d3293766"),
        "fbURLs" : "http://www.facebook.com",
        "twitterURLs" : "http://www.twitter.com"
    }
}

As mentioned before in MongoDB you can't JOIN between collections.

For your example a solution could be:

var myCursor = db.users.find({admin:1});
var user_id = myCursor.hasNext() ? myCursor.next() : null;
db.posts.find({owner_id : user_id._id});

See the reference manual - cursors section: http://es.docs.mongodb.org/manual/core/cursors/

Other solution would be to embed users in posts collection, but I think for most web applications users collection need to be independent for security reasons. Users collection might have Roles, permissons, etc.

posts
{
 "content":"Some content",
 "user":{"_id":"12345", "admin":1},
 "via":"facebook"
},
{
 "content":"Some other content",
 "user":{"_id":"123456789", "admin":0},
 "via":"facebook"
}

and then:

db.posts.find({user.admin: 1 });

Here is answer for your question.

db.getCollection('users').aggregate([
    {$match : {admin : 1}},
    {$lookup: {from: "posts",localField: "_id",foreignField: "owner_id",as: "posts"}},
    {$project : {
            posts : { $filter : {input : "$posts"  , as : "post", cond : { $eq : ['$$post.via' , 'facebook'] } } },
            admin : 1

        }}

])

Or either you can go with mongodb group option.

db.getCollection('users').aggregate([
    {$match : {admin : 1}},
    {$lookup: {from: "posts",localField: "_id",foreignField: "owner_id",as: "posts"}},
    {$unwind : "$posts"},
    {$match : {"posts.via":"facebook"}},
    { $group : {
            _id : "$_id",
            posts : {$push : "$posts"}
    }}
])

Perform multiple queries or use embedded documents or look at "database references".

One solution: add isAdmin: 0/1 flag to your post collection document.

Other solution: use DBrefs