MongoDB $toString

From MongoDB 4.0, you can use the $toString aggregation pipeline operator to convert a value to a string.

Example

Suppose we have a collection called types and it contains the following document:

{
	"_id" : ObjectId("60123a54c8eb4369cf6ad9d6"),
	"double" : 123.75,
	"string" : "123",
	"boolean" : true,
	"date" : ISODate("2020-12-31T23:30:15.123Z"),
	"integer" : 123,
	"long" : NumberLong(123),
	"decimal" : NumberDecimal("123.75")
}

We can use the $toString operator to convert all those types to a string. If the input is a string, then it simply returns the string.

db.types.aggregate(
  [
    {
      $project:
        { 
          _id: 0,
          objectId: { $toString: "$_id" },
          double: { $toString: "$double" },
          string: { $toString: "$string" },
          boolean: { $toString: "$boolean" },
          date: { $toString: "$date" },
          integer: { $toString: "$integer" },
          long: { $toString: "$long" },
          decimal: { $toString: "$decimal" }
        }
    }
  ]
).pretty()

Result:

{
	"objectId" : "60123a54c8eb4369cf6ad9d6",
	"double" : "123.75",
	"string" : "123",
	"boolean" : "true",
	"date" : "2020-12-31T23:30:15.123Z",
	"integer" : "123",
	"long" : "123",
	"decimal" : "123.75"
}

Errors

If you encounter errors, try using the $convert operator instead of $toString. The $convert operator allows you to handle errors without affecting the whole aggregation operation.

The $toString operator is the equivalent of using the $convert operator to convert a value to a string.

Here’s an example of using $convert to convert a date to a string::

db.types.aggregate(
  [
    {
      $project:
        { 
          _id: 0,
          result: 
          {
            $convert: { 
              input: "$date", 
              to: "string",
              onError: "An error occurred",
              onNull: "Input was null or empty" 
            }
          }
        }
    }
  ]
)

Result:

{ "result" : "2020-12-31T23:30:15.123Z" }

See MongoDB $convert for more examples.