Copy/Clone a Database in MongoDB

In earlier versions of MongoDB, you could use the copyDB command or its helper method, db.copyDatabase() to copy a database.

MongoDB has since deprecated these. Also, starting in version 4.2, MongoDB has removed the copydb command, and therefore also the db.copyDatabase() method, which means that you can’t use them even if you wanted to if you’re using MongoDB 4.2 or later.

Fortunately, there’s another way to copy a MongoDB database.

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Copy/Clone a Collection in MongoDB

In earlier versions of MongoDB, you could use the db.collection.copyTo() method to copy a collection.

MongoDB has since deprecated that method. Also, starting in version 4.2, MongoDB has removed the eval command. Given db.collection.copyTo() wraps eval, this means that you can’t use either of them if you’re using MongoDB 4.2 or later.

Fortunately, there’s another way to copy a MongoDB collection.

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MongoDB distinct Command

In MongoDB, the distinct aggregation command finds the distinct values for a specified field across a single collection.

It returns a document that contains an array of the distinct values, as well as an embedded document with query statistics and the query plan.

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MongoDB distinct()

In MongoDB, the db.collection.distinct() method finds the distinct values for a specified field across a single collection or view and returns the results in an array.

Distinct values are those with redundant duplicates removed. Distinct values are unique values. For example, if you have 2 or 3 documents with the same value, the distinct command will return just one value.

db.collection.distinct() is a shell wrapper method for the distinct command.

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MongoDB $sortByCount Aggregation Operator

In MongoDB the $sortByCount aggregation pipeline stage groups incoming documents based on the value of a specified expression, then computes the count of documents in each distinct group.

Each group is output in its own document, which consists of two fields:

  • an _id field containing the distinct grouping value, and
  • count field containing the number of documents belonging to that grouping.

The documents are sorted by count in descending order.

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MongoDB estimatedDocumentCount()

In MongoDB the db.collection.estimatedDocumentCount() method returns the count of all documents in a collection or view.

The collection part is the name of the collection or view to perform the count operation on.

The db.collection.estimatedDocumentCount() method wraps the count command.

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MongoDB cursor.count()

In MongoDB the cursor.count() method counts the number of documents referenced by a cursor..

Note that it doesn’t actually perform the query. It simply counts and returns the number of results that would be returned by the query.

The cursor.count() method is a wrapper for the count command.

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