[mongodb] Printing Mongo query output to a file while in the mongo shell

2 days old with Mongo and I have a SQL background so bear with me. As with mysql, it is very convenient to be in the MySQL command line and output the results of a query to a file on the machine. I am trying to understand how I can do the same with Mongo, while being in the shell

I can easily get the output of a query I want by being outside of the shell and executing the following command:

mongo localhost:27017/dbname --eval "printjson(db.collectionName.findOne())" > sample.json

The above way is fine, but it requires me to exit the mongo shell or open a new terminal tab to execute this command. It would be very convenient if I could simply do this while still being inside the shell.

P.S: the Question is an offshoot of a question I posted on SO

If you invoke the shell with script-file, db address, and --quiet arguments, you can redirect the output (made with print() for example) to a file:

mongo localhost/mydatabase --quiet myScriptFile.js > output 

It may be useful to you to simply increase the number of results that get displayed

In the mongo shell > DBQuery.shellBatchSize = 3000

and then you can select all the results out of the terminal in one go and paste into a text file.

It is what I am going to do :)

(from : https://stackoverflow.com/a/3705615/1290746)

There are ways to do this without having to quit the CLI and pipe mongo output to a non-tty.

To save the output from a query with result x we can do the following to directly store the json output to /tmp/x.json:

> EDITOR="cat > /tmp/x.json"
> x = db.MyCollection.find(...).toArray()
> edit x
>

Note that the output isn't strictly Json but rather the dialect that Mongo uses.

We can do it this way -

mongo db_name --quiet --eval 'DBQuery.shellBatchSize = 2000; db.users.find({}).limit(2000).toArray()' > users.json

The shellBatchSize argument is used to determine how many rows is the mongo client allowed to print. Its default value is 20.

Combining several conditions:

• write mongo query in JS file and send it from terminal
• switch/define a database programmatically
• output all found records
• cut initial output lines
• save the output into JSON file

myScriptFile.js

// Switch current database to "mydatabase"
db = db.getSiblingDB('mydatabase');

// The mark for cutting initial output off
print("CUT_TO_HERE");

// Main output
// "toArray()" method allows to get all records
printjson( db.getCollection('jobs').find().toArray() );

Sending the query from terminal

-z key of sed allows treat output as a single multi-line string

$> mongo localhost --quiet myScriptFile.js | sed -z 's/^.*CUT_TO_HERE\n//' > output.json