I want update an _id
field of one document. I know it's not really good practice. But for some technical reason, I need to update it.
If I try to update it I get:
db.clients.update({ _id: ObjectId("123")}, { $set: { _id: ObjectId("456")}})
Performing an update on the path '_id' would modify the immutable field '_id'
And the update is rejected. How I can update it?
You cannot update it. You'll have to save the document using a new _id
, and then remove the old document.
// store the document in a variable
doc = db.clients.findOne({_id: ObjectId("4cc45467c55f4d2d2a000002")})
// set a new _id on the document
doc._id = ObjectId("4c8a331bda76c559ef000004")
// insert the document, using the new _id
db.clients.insert(doc)
// remove the document with the old _id
db.clients.remove({_id: ObjectId("4cc45467c55f4d2d2a000002")})
To do it for your whole collection you can also use a loop (based on Niels example):
db.status.find().forEach(function(doc){
doc._id=doc.UserId; db.status_new.insert(doc);
});
db.status_new.renameCollection("status", true);
In this case UserId was the new ID I wanted to use
list()
is the logical one, but for large databases this can exhaust the memory
In case, you want to rename _id in same collection (for instance, if you want to prefix some _ids):
db.someCollection.find().snapshot().forEach(function(doc) {
if (doc._id.indexOf("2019:") != 0) {
print("Processing: " + doc._id);
var oldDocId = doc._id;
doc._id = "2019:" + doc._id;
db.someCollection.insert(doc);
db.someCollection.remove({_id: oldDocId});
}
});
if (doc._id.indexOf("2019:") != 0) {... needed to prevent infinite loop, since forEach picks the inserted docs, even throught .snapshot() method used.
find(...).snapshot is not a function
but other than that, great solution. Also, if you want to replace _id
with your custom id, you can check if doc._id.toString().length === 24
to prevent the infinite loop (assuming your custom IDs aren't also 24 characters long),
Here I have a solution that avoid multiple requests, for loops and old document removal.
You can easily create a new idea manually using something like:_id:ObjectId()
But knowing Mongo will automatically assign an _id if missing, you can use aggregate to create a $project
containing all the fields of your document, but omit the field _id. You can then save it with $out
So if your document is:
{
"_id":ObjectId("5b5ed345cfbce6787588e480"),
"title": "foo",
"description": "bar"
}
Then your query will be:
db.getCollection('myCollection').aggregate([
{$match:
{_id: ObjectId("5b5ed345cfbce6787588e480")}
}
{$project:
{
title: '$title',
description: '$description'
}
},
{$out: 'myCollection'}
])
_id
to a given value, rather than let MongoDB generate another one.
You can also create a new document from MongoDB compass or using command and set the specific _id
value that you want.
As a very small improvement to the above answers i would suggest using
let doc1 = {... doc};
then
db.dyn_user_metricFormulaDefinitions.deleteOne({_id: doc._id});
This way we don't need to create extra variable to hold old _id.
Slightly modified example of @Florent Arlandis above where we insert _id from a different field in a document:
> db.coll.insertOne({ "_id": 1, "item": { "product": { "id": 11 } }, "source": "Good Store" })
{ "acknowledged" : true, "insertedId" : 1 }
> db.coll.aggregate( [ { $set: { _id : "$item.product.id" }}, { $out: "coll" } ]) // inserting _id you want for the current collection
> db.coll.find() // check that _id is changed
{ "_id" : 11, "item" : { "product" : { "id" : 11 } }, "source" : "Good Store" }
Do not use $match
filter + $out
as in @Florent Arlandis's answer since $out fully remove data in collection before inserting aggregate result, so effectively you will loose all data that don't match to $match
filter
Success story sharing
duplicate key error
in theinsert
line and aren't worried about the problem @skelly mentioned, the simplest solution is to just call theremove
line first and then call theinsert
line. Thedoc
should already printed on your screen so it'd be easy to recover, worst case, even if the insert fails, for simple documents.