{"id":101954,"date":"2024-04-29T21:10:35","date_gmt":"2024-04-29T21:10:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/?p=101954"},"modified":"2024-11-14T22:21:43","modified_gmt":"2024-11-14T22:21:43","slug":"updating-documents-in-mongodb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/databases\/nosql\/mongodb\/updating-documents-in-mongodb\/","title":{"rendered":"Updating Documents in MongoDB"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article is part of Robert Sheldon's continuing series on Mongo DB. To see all of the items in the series, click here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

In the previous articles this series, I demonstrated various ways to retrieve document data from a MongoDB database, using both MongoDB Shell and MongoDB Compass. In this article, my focus shifts from retrieving data to updating data, which is an essential skill to have when working with MongoDB. Whether you access the data directly in a MongoDB database or build applications that rely on the data, you should have a good foundation in how to modify a collection\u2019s documents. This article can help you build that foundation.<\/p>\n

MongoDB provides multiple methods for modifying the documents in a collection. In this article, I focus on two of those methods: updateOne<\/code> and updateMany<\/code>. The methods are fairly similar to each other except that, as their names suggest, the updateOne<\/code> method can update only one document at a time, while the updateMany<\/code> method can modify any number of documents.<\/p>\n

In this article, I demonstrate how to build update statements that use these two methods to modify data. The examples are based on MongoDB Shell, rather than on how the methods might be used in a programming language such as Java or Python. On the surface, the updateOne<\/code> and updateMany<\/code> methods might seem fairly basic, but when you start digging deeper into them, you\u2019ll find that they\u2019re not quite as straightforward as they appear.<\/p>\n

This article takes you through the basics of using these methods to modify document data. As with most MongoDB topics, covering every aspect of the two methods requires more than a single article. However, I tried to provide you with the most important information so you can start using them in your own projects.<\/p>\n

Note: For the examples in this article, I used the same MongoDB Atlas and MongoDB Compass environments I used for the previous articles in this series. Refer to the first article for more specifics about setting up these environments. If you want to try out the examples in this article, you should create the hr<\/code> database and employees<\/code> collection in that database. Each section provides the test data you\u2019ll need to try out those examples.<\/p>\n

Updating documents in a MongoDB collection<\/h2>\n

The updateOne<\/code> and updateMany<\/code> methods are two of the most common methods used to update data in MongoDB. You can incorporate either one into a statement that you can then run in MongoDB Shell. The statement\u2019s basic syntax is essentially the same for both methods, except for the method name. For example, the following syntax shows the elements that make up an updateOne<\/code> statement:<\/p>\n

db.collection.updateOne( { filter }, { update }, { options } );<\/pre>\n
The syntax might vary when used in other programming languages\u2014as opposed to MongoDB Shell\u2014but the basic concepts are much the same. In this case, the updateOne<\/code> statement is made up of the following components:<\/p>\n