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$documents (aggregation stage)

$documents

New in version 6.0.

Returns literal documents from input values.

The $documents stage has the following form:

{ $documents: <expression> }
  • You can only use $documents in a database-level aggregation pipeline.

  • You must use $documents as the first stage of an aggregation pipeline.

See below for usage examples.

$documents accepts any valid expression that resolves to an array of objects. This includes:

  • system variables, such as $$NOW or $$SEARCH_META

  • $let expressions

  • variables in scope from $lookup expressions

Expressions that do not resolve to a current document, like $myField or $$ROOT, will result in an error.

Create testing and debugging data for a pipeline stage without creating test collections.

db.aggregate( [ { $documents: [ { x: 10 }, { x: 2 }, { x: 5 } ] }, { $bucketAuto: { groupBy: "$x", buckets: 4 } } ])

The aggregation expression does not specify a collection. It uses the input data in the highlighted $documents stage as input to the $bucketAuto stage.

[ { _id: { min: 2, max: 5 }, count: 1 }, { _id: { min: 5, max: 10 }, count: 1 }, { _id: { min: 10, max: 10 }, count: 1 }]

Correlate documents in a collection with other data using $documents to modify $lookup output.

Create the locations collection.

db.locations.insertMany( [ { zip: 94301, name: "Palo Alto" }, { zip: 10019, name: "New York" } ] )

Use $documents as a data source to transform the documents.

db.locations.aggregate( [ { $match: {} }, { $lookup: { localField: "zip", foreignField: "zip_id", as: "city_state", pipeline: [ { $documents: [ { zip_id: 94301, name: "Palo Alto, CA" }, { zip_id: 10019, name: "New York, NY" } ] } ] } } ] )

The output correlates the data in the locations collection with the values in the $documents pipeline stage.

[ { _id: ObjectId("618949d60f7bfd5f5689490d"), zip: 94301, name: 'Palo Alto', city_state: [ { zip_id: 94301, name: 'Palo Alto, CA' } ] }, { _id: ObjectId("618949d60f7bfd5f5689490e"), zip: 10019, name: 'New York', city_state: [ { zip_id: 10019, name: 'New York, NY' } ] }]
  • The zip field corresponds to the zip_id field

  • The as parameter creates a new output field

For details on subqueries using the $lookup syntax, see Correlated Subqueries Using Concise Syntax.