Darshan Hiranandani : Can MongoDB Discard and Delete Batches After Processing with itcount()?

Hi everyone,

I’m Darshan Hiranandani, I’ve been experimenting with the itcount() method in MongoDB and trying to understand its behavior, particularly in terms of memory management. I was initially under the impression that after calling itcount(), all documents were loaded into memory at once. However, after consulting Copilot, I got a different explanation:

It seems that itcount() processes documents in batches. So, instead of loading all documents into memory at once, it loads, processes, and discards each batch as it iterates through the collection. This helps with memory usage by not keeping everything in memory simultaneously.

The statement from Copilot made sense, but I couldn’t find any official documentation to confirm whether MongoDB discards batches from memory before moving on to the next one.

So my question is: Is it possible to discard and delete a batch after it has been processed by MongoDB? Also, unlike toArray(), which loads all documents into memory, does itcount() only load one batch at a time and then discard it before loading the next?

I’d love to hear your thoughts or if anyone has more insight into how MongoDB manages this process.

Thanks!

Regards
Darshan Hiranandani

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