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Insert Data into MongoDB

Deployment Type:

Client:

---

Author: MongoDB Documentation Team

In this guide, you will insert data into MongoDB.

Time required: 15 minutes

What You’ll Need

• If you have not already installed a client (e.g. a driver, MongoDB Compass, or the mongo shell), complete the Connect to MongoDB guide before attempting this guide.

• If you have not already installed a client (e.g. a driver, MongoDB Compass, or the mongo shell), complete the Connect to MongoDB guide before attempting this guide.
• Enable Auth on your local instance of MongoDB.

Warning

If you are running MongoDB locally and have not enabled authentication, your MongoDB instance is not secure.

Check Your Environment

You will need to ensure that your MongoDB instance is running and accessible.

Check that you have an Atlas account and have deployed a MongoDB database cluster. See Get Started with Atlas for information on how to login and create a cluster in Atlas.

• Windows
• macOS
• Linux

To make sure that your MongoDB instance is running on Windows, run the following command from the Windows command prompt:

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tasklist /FI "IMAGENAME eq mongod.exe"

If a mongod.exe instance is running, you will see something like:

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Image Name                     PID Session Name        Session#    Mem Usage
========================= ======== ================ =========== ============
mongod.exe                    8716 Console                    1      9,508 K

To make sure your MongoDB instance is running on Mac, run the following command from your terminal:

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ps -e | grep 'mongod'

If a mongod instance is running, you will see something like:

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89780 ttys026    0:53.48 ./mongod

To make sure your MongoDB instance is running on Linux, run the following command from your terminal:

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ps -e| grep 'mongod'

If a mongod instance is running, you will see something like:

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89780 ttys026    0:53.48 ./mongod

Procedure

1

Connect to Your MongoDB Instance

• Mongo Shell
• Compass
• Python
• Java (Sync)
• Node.js
• Other
  • C#
  • Go

Select the operating system platform on which you are running the MongoDB client you have selected.

• Windows
• macOS
• Linux

Pass the URI to the mongo shell followed by the --password option. You will then be prompted for your password.

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mongo.exe <URISTRING_SHELL_NOUSER>

Pass the URI to the mongo shell followed by the --password option. You will then be prompted for your password.

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mongo <URISTRING_SHELL_NOUSER>

Pass the URI to the mongo shell followed by the --password option. You will then be prompted for your password.

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mongo <URISTRING_SHELL_NOUSER>

If you wish to manually configure your Compass connection, load Compass and select the New Connection link. You will see a form where you can enter connection information for MongoDB.

Atlas users can copy a URI string from the Atlas console into Compass. MongoDB Compass can detect whether you have a MongoDB URI connection string in your system clipboard and auto- populate the connection dialog from the URI.

See Set Up Atlas Connectivity for information on how to get the Atlas connection string URI into your copy buffer.

If Compass was already running when you copied the URI string, click the NEW CONNECTION button.

You will be prompted to populate the connection dialog. Click Yes.

You should then populate the password field with the proper password for your MongoDB user in the connection form.

Note

Errors related to connecting through Compass will appear in red at the top of the Connect screen.

It’s a good idea to put your connection code in a class so that it can be reused.

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from pymongo import MongoClient

class Connect(object):
    @staticmethod    
    def get_connection():
        return MongoClient("<URISTRING>")

If your connection_string starts with mongodb+srv, you need to install the dnspython module with

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python -m pip install dnspython

Now add code to call the class you just created.

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from connect import Connect
from pymongo import MongoClient

connection = Connect.get_connection()

For the MongoDB java driver 3.7 and beyond, use the MongoClients.create() method.

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    final String uriString = "<URISTRING>";
    MongoClient mongoClient = MongoClients.create(uriString);

For legacy drivers (prior to 3.7), use:

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    final String uriString = "<URISTRING>";
    MongoClientURI uri = new MongoClientURI(uriString);
    MongoClient mongoClient = new MongoClient(uri);

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The MongoDB.Bson package is used in CRUD operations, so you’ll import it here.

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using System;
using MongoDB.Bson;
using MongoDB.Driver;

namespace csharptest
{
    class Connect
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
           var client = new MongoClient("<URISTRING>");
        }
    }
}

Replace your password and any parameters surrounded by $[] in the connection string in the code below.

For now, you will use the context.TODO().

Later you’ll configure the context specific to your requirements.

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client, err := mongo.Connect(context.TODO(), "<URISTRING>");

if err != nil {
	log.Fatal(err)
}

You won’t know if the connection has been successful until you use the connection. A ping is one way you can test the connection. This is a full example of a Go connection to mongoDB, including a test ping.

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package main

import (
	"context"
	"fmt"
	"github.com/mongodb/mongo-go-driver/mongo"
	"log"
)

func main() {
	// Open Connection
	client, err := mongo.Connect(context.TODO(), "<URISTRING>");

	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}

	// End Open Connection Code

	// Check the connection
	err = client.Ping(context.TODO(), nil)

	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}

	fmt.Println("Connected to MongoDB!")

}

In your Go workspace and project folder, run build.

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go build

Now run the binary. For binaries that are not installed, you’ll have to specify the path.

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go <path-to-yourproject>

If you’d like to run the resulting binary without specifying a path, install the binary you just built into your Go workspace.

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go install

Now run the code. “yourprojectname” is the name of the project directory that contains the file with your main() function.

For installed binaries use:

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go yourprojectname

For binaries that are not installed, you’ll have to specify the path.

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go ./yourprojectname

The default timeout for the Go driver to connect to the database is 30 seconds. In the event that you are unable to connect, you will see an error that resembles this:

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2019/01/09 10:01:50 server selection timeout

2

Switch to the test Database

• Mongo Shell
• Compass
• Python
• Java (Sync)
• Node.js
• Other
  • Motor
  • C#
  • Go

To switch to the test database in the mongo shell, type

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use test

If the database has not been created already, click the Create Database button.

Select the test database on the left side of the Compass interface. Compass will list all of the collections in the database below the database name.

To access the test database:

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db = client.test

Switch to the test database and access the inventory collection.

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MongoDatabase mongoDB = mongoClient.getDatabase("test");
MongoCollection<Document> collection = mongoDB.getCollection("inventory");

Within the connect block, set db to the test database.

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const db = client.db("test");

To access the test database:

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db = client.test

Switch to the test database and access the inventory collection.

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var database = client.GetDatabase("test");
var collection = database.GetCollection<BsonDocument>("inventory");

To access the test database:

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db := client.Database("test")

3

Insert a Single Document

Now you are ready to create your first document in MongoDB.

MongoDB stores documents as BSON, a binary form of JavaScript Object Notation JSON. The documents are stored in collections.

• Mongo Shell
• Compass
• Python
• Java (Sync)
• Node.js
• Other
  • Motor
  • C#
  • Go

The following example inserts a new document into the inventory collection. If the document does not specify an _id field, MongoDB adds the _id field with an ObjectId value to the new document.

To insert a single document using MongoDB Compass:

1. Navigate to the collection you wish to insert the document into:

   1. In the left-hand MongoDB Compass navigation pane, click the database to which your target collection belongs.
   2. From the database view, click the target collection name.

2. Click the Insert Document button:

   

3. For each field in the document, select the field type and fill in the field name and value. Add fields by clicking the last line number, then clicking Add Field After …

   • For Object types, add nested fields by clicking the last field’s number and selecting Add Field After …
   • For Array types, add additional elements to the array by clicking the last element’s line number and selecting Add Array Element After …

4. Once all fields have been filled out, click Insert.

The following example inserts a new document into the test.inventory collection:

The following example inserts a new document into the inventory collection. If the document does not specify an _id field, the PyMongo driver adds the _id field with an ObjectId value to the new document. See Insert Behavior.

The following example inserts a new document into the inventory collection. If the document does not specify an _id field, the driver adds the _id field with an ObjectId value to the new document. See Insert Behavior.

First, get the inventory collection.

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    MongoDatabase db = mongoClient.getDatabase("test");
    MongoCollection<Document> collection = db
            .getCollection("inventory");

The following example inserts a new document into the inventory collection. If the document does not specify an _id field, the Node.js driver adds the _id field with an ObjectId value to the new document. See Insert Behavior.

The following example shows the api call required to insert a new document into the inventory collection. If the document does not specify an _id field, the Motor driver adds the _id field with an ObjectId value to the new document. See Insert Behavior.

The following example inserts a new document into the inventory collection. If the document does not specify an _id field, the C# driver adds the _id field with an ObjectId value to the new document. See Insert Behavior.

The following example shows the api call required to insert a new document into the inventory collection. If the document does not specify an _id field, the Go driver adds the _id field with an ObjectId value to the new document. See Insert Behavior.

Before inserting the data, you’ll need to assign the inventory collection in the test database to a variable

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      coll := db.Collection("inventory")

• Mongo Shell
• Compass
• Python
• Java (Sync)
• Node.js
• Other
  • Motor
  • C#
  • Go

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db.inventory.insertOne(
   { "item" : "canvas",
     "qty" : 100,
     "tags" : ["cotton"],
     "size" : { "h" : 28, "w" : 35.5, "uom" : "cm" }
   }
)

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db.inventory.insert_one(
    {
        "item": "canvas",
        "qty": 100,
        "tags": ["cotton"],
        "size": {"h": 28, "w": 35.5, "uom": "cm"},
    }
)

Next, populate a Document with fields and an embedded document, and insert it into the database.

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Document canvas = new Document("item", "canvas")
        .append("qty", 100)
        .append("tags", singletonList("cotton"));

Document size = new Document("h", 28)
        .append("w", 35.5)
        .append("uom", "cm");
canvas.put("size", size);

collection.insertOne(canvas);

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db.collection('inventory').insertOne({
  item: "canvas",
  qty: 100,
  tags: ["cotton"],
  size: { h: 28, w: 35.5, uom: "cm" }
})
.then(function(result) {
  // process result
})

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await db.inventory.insert_one(
    {
        "item": "canvas",
        "qty": 100,
        "tags": ["cotton"],
        "size": {"h": 28, "w": 35.5, "uom": "cm"},
    }
)

For completeness, this is how you might wrap this call and run it with the asyncio event loop.

Run the loop:

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async def do_insert_one():
    document = await db.inventory.insert_one(
        {"item": "canvas",
         "qty": 100,
         "tags": ["cotton"],
         "size": {"h": 28, "w": 35.5, "uom": "cm"}})

loop = asyncio.get_event_loop()
loop.run_until_complete(do_insert_one())

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var document = new BsonDocument
{
    { "item", "canvas" },
    { "qty", 100 },
    { "tags", new BsonArray { "cotton" } },
    { "size", new BsonDocument { { "h", 28 }, { "w", 35.5 }, { "uom", "cm" } } }
};
collection.InsertOne(document);

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result, err := coll.InsertOne(
	context.Background(),
	bson.D{
		{"item", "canvas"},
		{"qty", 100},
		{"tags", bson.A{"cotton"}},
		{"size", bson.D{
			{"h", 28},
			{"w", 35.5},
			{"uom", "cm"},
		}},
	})

Unlike SQL tables, MongoDB collections have dynamic schemas. That is, a single collection can store documents that differ in shapes (i.e. contain different fields and value types). And unlike SQL, no DDL operation is required to add or remove fields or modify field types. You just update the documents directly.

Note

While MongoDB does support dynamic collection definitions, you can also enforce a uniform schema for the documents in your collection. See JSON Schema validation.

• Python
• Java (Sync)
• Motor

When you are done working with your MongoDB data, close your connection to MongoDB:

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mongoClient.close();

Summary

If you have successfully completed this guide, you have created your first MongoDB data. In the next guide, you will check your work by retrieving the information you just saved.

What’s Next

In this guide, you will read all documents from a collection in the MongoDB database.

• Read Data from MongoDB

See Also

For other CRUD guides:

• Read Data from MongoDB
• Read Data using Operators and Compound Queries
• Read Data from MongoDB With Queries
• Update Data in MongoDB
• Delete Data from MongoDB

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