Specify Documents to Return

On this page

Overview

Sample Data
Limit
Sort
Skip
Combine Limit, Sort, and Skip
Additional Information
API Documentation

Overview

In this guide, you can learn how to specify which documents to return from a read operation by using the following methods:

limit(): Specifies the maximum number of documents to return from a query.
sort(): Specifies the sort order for the returned documents.
skip(): Specifies the number of documents to skip before returning query results.

Sample Data

The examples in this guide use the sample_restaurants.restaurants collection from the Atlas sample datasets. To learn how to create a free MongoDB Atlas cluster and load the sample datasets, see the Get Started with PyMongo.

Limit

To specify the maximum number of documents returned from a read operation, call the limit() method.

The following example finds all restaurants that have a cuisine field value of "Italian", and limits the results to 5 documents:

results = restaurants.find({ "cuisine" : "Italian"}).limit(5)
for restaurant in results:
    print(restaurant["name"])

Isle Of Capri Resturant Italian
Arturo'S Italian
Patsy'S Italian Restaurant Italian
Piccola Venezia Italian
Roadhouse Restaurant Italian

You can also limit the number of returned documents by specifying the limit parameter in your find() method:

results = restaurants.find({ "cuisine" : "Italian"}, limit=5)
for restaurant in results:
    print(restaurant["name"])

Isle Of Capri Resturant Italian
Arturo'S Italian
Patsy'S Italian Restaurant Italian
Piccola Venezia Italian
Roadhouse Restaurant Italian

Tip

The preceding examples return the first five documents returned by the query, in no particular order. The following section describes how to return the documents in a specified sort order.

Sort

To return documents in a specified order, call the sort() method. The sort() method takes two parameters: the field to sort the results by, and a sort direction. To specify the sort direction, specify either pymongo.ASCENDING or pymongo.DESCENDING. ASCENDING sorts values from lowest to highest, and DESCENDING sorts them from highest to lowest. If you don't specify either direction, the method defaults to sorting in ascending order.

The following example returns all documents with the cuisine value of "Italian", sorted in ascending order:

results = restaurants.find({ "cuisine" : "Italian"}).sort("name", pymongo.ASCENDING)
for restaurant in results:
    print(restaurant["name"])

(Lewis Drug Store) Locanda Vini E Olii
101 Restaurant And Bar
44 Sw Ristorante & Bar
900 Park
A Voce
...
Zucchero E Pomodori

You can also sort documents by specifying the sort parameter in your find() method. The following example specifies the sort parameter to return the results in the same order as the preceding example:

results = restaurants.find({ "cuisine" : "Italian"}, sort={"name": pymongo.ASCENDING} )
for restaurant in results:
    print(restaurant["name"])

(Lewis Drug Store) Locanda Vini E Olii
101 Restaurant And Bar
44 Sw Ristorante & Bar
900 Park
A Voce
...
Zucchero E Pomodori

Skip

To skip a specified number of documents before returning your query results, call the skip() method and pass in the number of documents to skip. The skip() method ignores the specified number of documents in your query results and returns the rest.

The following example returns all documents that have a borough field value of "Manhattan", and skips the first 10 documents:

results = restaurants.find({ "borough" : "Manhattan"}).skip(10)
for restaurant in results:
    print(restaurant["name"])

Dorrian'S Red Hand Restaurant
The Princeton Club
Moran'S Chelsea
La Parisienne Diner
Jimmy'S Corner
...

You can also skip returned documents by using the skip parameter of the find() method. The following example specifies the same skip as the preceding example:

results = restaurants.find({ "borough" : "Manhattan"}, skip=10)
for restaurant in results:
    print(restaurant["name"])

Dorrian'S Red Hand Restaurant
The Princeton Club
Moran'S Chelsea
La Parisienne Diner
Jimmy'S Corner
...

Combine Limit, Sort, and Skip

You can combine the limit(), sort(), and skip() methods in a single operation. This allows you to set a maximum number of sorted documents to return, skipping a specified number of documents before returning.

The following example returns documents with the cuisine value of "Italian". The results are sorted in alphabetical order, skipping the first 10 documents:

results = restaurants.find({ "cuisine" : "Italian"}) \
                     .sort("name", pymongo.ASCENDING) \
                     .limit(5) \
                     .skip(10)
for restaurant in results:
    print(restaurant["name"])

Acqua
Acqua Restaurant
Acqua Santa
Acquista Trattoria
Acquolina Catering

Note

The order in which you call these methods doesn't change the documents that are returned. The driver automatically reorders the calls to perform the sort and skip operations first, and the limit operation afterward.

You can also limit, sort, and skip results by specifying them as parameters in the find() method. The following example specifies the same query as the preceding example:

results = restaurants.find({ "cuisine" : "Italian"}, limit=5, sort={"name": pymongo.ASCENDING}, skip=10)
for restaurant in results:
    print(restaurant["name"])

Acqua
Acqua Restaurant
Acqua Santa
Acquista Trattoria
Acquolina Catering

Additional Information

For more information about specifying a query, see Specify a Query.

For more information about retrieving documents, see Retrieve Data.

API Documentation

To learn more about any of the methods or types discussed in this guide, see the following API Documentation:

Back

Specify Fields to Return

Count Documents