Retrieve MongoDB Data

Overview

In this guide, you can learn how to retrieve data from MongoDB collections by using Laravel MongoDB. This guide describes the Eloquent model methods that you can use to retrieve data and provides examples of different types of find operations.

To learn more about Eloquent models in the Laravel Integration, see the Model Your Data section.

Retrieve Documents that Match a Query

You can use Laravel's Eloquent object-relational mapper (ORM) to create models that represent MongoDB collections and chain methods on them to specify query criteria.

To retrieve documents that match a set of criteria, call the where() method on the collection's corresponding Eloquent model, then pass a query filter to the method.

A query filter specifies field value requirements and instructs the find operation to return only documents that meet these requirements.

You can use one of the following where() method calls to build a query:

• where('<field name>', <value>) builds a query that matches documents in which the target field has the exact specified value

• where('<field name>', '<comparison operator>', <value>) builds a query that matches documents in which the target field's value meets the comparison criteria

To apply multiple sets of criteria to the find operation, you can chain a series of where() methods together.

After building your query by using the where() method, chain the get() method to retrieve the query results.

This example calls two where() methods on the Movie Eloquent model to retrieve documents that meet the following criteria:

• year field has a value of 2010

• imdb.rating nested field has a value greater than 8.5

$movies = Movie::where('year', 2010)
    ->where('imdb.rating', '>', 8.5)
    ->get();

class MovieController
{
    public function show()
    {
         $movies = Movie::where('year', 2010)
             ->where('imdb.rating', '>', 8.5)
             ->get();
         return view('browse_movies', [
             'movies' => $movies
         ]);
    }
}

Title: Inception
Year: 2010
Runtime: 148
IMDB Rating: 8.8
IMDB Votes: 1294646
Plot: A thief who steals corporate secrets through use of dream-sharing
technology is given the inverse task of planting an idea into the mind of a CEO.
Title: Senna
Year: 2010
Runtime: 106
IMDB Rating: 8.6
IMDB Votes: 41904
Plot: A documentary on Brazilian Formula One racing driver Ayrton Senna, who won the
F1 world championship three times before his death at age 34.

To learn how to query by using the Laravel query builder instead of the Eloquent ORM, see the Query Builder page.

$movies = Movie::where('countries', ['Indonesia', 'Canada'])
    ->get();

$movies = Movie::where('countries', 'in', ['Canada', 'Egypt'])
    ->get();

Retrieve the First Result

To retrieve the first document that matches a set of criteria, use the where() method followed by the first() method.

Chain the orderBy() method to first() to get consistent results when you query on a unique value. If you omit the orderBy() method, MongoDB returns the matching documents according to the documents' natural order, or as they appear in the collection.

This example queries for documents in which the value of the runtime field is 30 and returns the first matching document according to the value of the _id field.

$movie = Movie::where('runtime', 30)
    ->orderBy('_id')
    ->first();

class MovieController
{
    public function show()
    {
        $movie = Movie::where('runtime', 30)
            ->orderBy('_id')
            ->first();
        return view('browse_movies', [
            'movies' => $movie
        ]);
    }
}

Title: Statues also Die
Year: 1953
Runtime: 30
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 620
Plot: A documentary of black art.

Retrieve All Documents in a Collection

You can retrieve all documents in a collection by omitting the query filter. To return the documents, call the get() method on an Eloquent model that represents your collection. Alternatively, you can use the get() method's alias all() to perform the same operation.

Use the following syntax to run a find operation that matches all documents:

$movies = Movie::get();

Fully Runnable Examples

The following sections provide fully runnable code examples that demonstrate how to retrieve documents by using the Laravel Integration. These examples use the sample_mflix.movies collection from the Atlas sample datasets.

$movie = Movie::where('directors', 'Rob Reiner')
  ->orderBy('id')
  ->first();
echo $movie->toJson();

// Result is truncated
{
  "_id": ...,
  "title": "This Is Spinal Tap",
  "directors": [ "Rob Reiner" ],
   ...
}

$movie = DB::table('movies')
  ->where('directors', 'Rob Reiner')
  ->orderBy('_id')
  ->first();
echo $movie->title;

This Is Spinal Tap

$movies = Movie::where('runtime', '>', 900)
    ->orderBy('id')
    ->get();

// Results are truncated
[
  {
    "_id": ...,
    "runtime": 1256,
    "title": "Centennial",
    ...,
  },
  {
    "_id": ...,
    "runtime": 1140,
    "title": "Baseball",
    ...,
  },
  ...
]

$movies = DB::table('movies')
    ->where('runtime', '>', 900)
    ->orderBy('_id')
    ->get();

// Results are truncated
[
  {
    "_id": ...,
    "runtime": 1256,
    "title": "Centennial",
    ...,
  },
  {
    "_id": ...,
    "runtime": 1140,
    "title": "Baseball",
    ...,
  },
  ...
]

$count = Movie::where('genres', 'Biography')
    ->count();
echo 'Number of documents: ' . $count;

Number of documents: 1267

$count = DB::table('movies')
    ->where('genres', 'Biography')
    ->count();
echo 'Number of documents: ' . $count;

Number of documents: 1267

$ratings = Movie::where('directors', 'Sofia Coppola')
    ->select('imdb.rating')
    ->distinct()
    ->get();
echo $ratings;

[[5.6],[6.4],[7.2],[7.8]]

$ratings = DB::table('movies')
    ->where('directors', 'Sofia Coppola')
    ->select('imdb.rating')
    ->distinct()
    ->get();
echo $ratings;

[5.6,6.4,7.2,7.8]

Additional Information

To learn how to insert data into MongoDB, see the Insert Documents guide.

To learn how to modify the way that the Laravel Integration returns results, see the Modify Query Results guide.