cursor.count()
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Definition
cursor.count()
Important
mongosh Method
This page documents a
mongosh
method. This is not the documentation for a language-specific driver, such as Node.js.For MongoDB API drivers, refer to the language-specific MongoDB driver documentation.
Note
MongoDB drivers compatible with the 4.0 features deprecate their respective cursor and collection
count()
APIs in favor of new APIs that corresponds tocountDocuments()
andestimatedDocumentCount()
. For the specific API names for a given driver, see the driver API documentation.Counts the number of documents referenced by a cursor. Append the
count()
method to afind()
query to return the number of matching documents. The operation does not perform the query but instead counts the results that would be returned by the query.The
count()
method has the following prototype form:db.collection.find(<query>).count() The
count()
method has the following parameter:ParameterTypeDescriptionapplySkipLimit
boolean
Optional.
mongosh
ignores any value you set for this option. The value defaults totrue
.The option specifies whether to consider the effects of the
cursor.skip()
andcursor.limit()
methods in the count. By default, thecount()
method ignores the effects of thecursor.skip()
andcursor.limit()
. You must setapplySkipLimit
totrue
to consider the effect of these methods.The legacy
mongo
shell, which is now deprecated, used your setting for this option.MongoDB also provides an equivalent
db.collection.count()
as an alternative to thedb.collection.find(<query>).count()
construct.MongoDB supports the use of
hint()
withcount()
. See Specify the Index to Use for an example.
Compatibility
This method is available in deployments hosted in the following environments:
MongoDB Atlas: The fully managed service for MongoDB deployments in the cloud
Note
This command is supported in all MongoDB Atlas clusters. For information on Atlas support for all commands, see Unsupported Commands.
MongoDB Enterprise: The subscription-based, self-managed version of MongoDB
MongoDB Community: The source-available, free-to-use, and self-managed version of MongoDB
Behavior
Inaccurate Counts Without Query Predicate
When you call count()
on a
find()
operation which does not specify a query
predicate, the count()
method can return inaccurate
document counts. These count()
methods return results
based on the collection's metadata, which may result in an approximate
count. In particular,
On a sharded cluster, the resulting count will not correctly filter out orphaned documents.
After an unclean shutdown or file copy based initial sync, the count may be incorrect.
For counts based on collection metadata, see also collStats pipeline stage with the count option.
Count and Transactions
You cannot use count
and shell helpers
count()
and db.collection.count()
in
transactions.
For details, see Transactions and Count Operations.
Sharded Clusters
On a sharded cluster, count()
without a query predicate in the find
can result in an inaccurate count if
orphaned documents exist or if a
chunk migration is in progress.
To avoid these situations, on a sharded cluster, use the
db.collection.aggregate()
method:
You can use the $count
stage to count the documents. For
example, the following operation counts the documents in a collection:
db.collection.aggregate( [ { $count: "myCount" } ])
The $count
stage is equivalent to the following
$group
+ $project
sequence:
db.collection.aggregate( [ { $group: { _id: null, count: { $sum: 1 } } }, { $project: { _id: 0 } } ] )
Index Use
Consider a collection with the following index:
{ a: 1, b: 1 }
When performing a count, MongoDB can return the count using only the index if:
the query can use an index,
the query only contains conditions on the keys of the index, and
the query predicates access a single contiguous range of index keys.
For example, the following operations can return the count using only the index:
db.collection.find( { a: 5, b: 5 } ).count() db.collection.find( { a: { $gt: 5 } } ).count() db.collection.find( { a: 5, b: { $gt: 10 } } ).count()
If, however, the query can use an index but the query predicates do not access a single contiguous range of index keys or the query also contains conditions on fields outside the index, then in addition to using the index, MongoDB must also read the documents to return the count.
db.collection.find( { a: 5, b: { $in: [ 1, 2, 3 ] } } ).count() db.collection.find( { a: { $gt: 5 }, b: 5 } ).count() db.collection.find( { a: 5, b: 5, c: 5 } ).count()
In such cases, during the initial read of the documents, MongoDB pages the documents into memory such that subsequent calls of the same count operation will have better performance.
Examples
The following are examples of the count()
method.
Count All Documents
The following operation counts the number of all documents in the
orders
collection:
db.orders.find().count()
Count Documents That Match a Query
The following operation counts the number of the documents in the
orders
collection with the field ord_dt
greater than new
Date('01/01/2012')
:
db.orders.find( { ord_dt: { $gt: new Date('01/01/2012') } } ).count()
Limit Documents in Count
The following operation counts the number of the documents in the
orders
collection with the field ord_dt
greater than new
Date('01/01/2012')
taking into account the effect of the
limit(5)
:
db.orders.find( { ord_dt: { $gt: new Date('01/01/2012') } } ).limit(5).count(true)
Specify the Index to Use
The following operation uses the index named "status_1"
, which has
the index key specification of { status: 1 }
, to return a count of
the documents in the orders
collection with the field ord_dt
greater than new Date('01/01/2012')
and the status
field is
equal to "D"
:
db.orders.find( { ord_dt: { $gt: new Date('01/01/2012') }, status: "D" } ).hint( "status_1" ).count()