$filter (expression operator)

Filter Based on Number Comparison

The following example filters the items array to only include documents that have a price greater than or equal to 100:

db.sales.aggregate( [
   {
      $project: {
         items: {
            $filter: {
               input: "$items",
               as: "item",
               cond: { $gte: [ "$$item.price", 100 ] }
            }
         }
      }
   }
] )

[
   {
      _id: 0,
      items: [ { item_id: 2, quantity: 1, price: 240, name: 'briefcase' } ]
   },
   {
      _id: 1,
      items: [
         { item_id: 23, quantity: 3, price: 110, name: 'notebook' },
         { item_id: 38, quantity: 1, price: 300, name: 'printer' }
      ]
   },
   { _id: 2, items: [] }
]

Use the limit Field

The example uses the limit field to specify the number of matching elements returned in each items array.

db.sales.aggregate( [
   {
      $project: {
         items: {
            $filter: {
               input: "$items",
               as: "item",
               cond: { $gte: [ "$$item.price", 100 ] },
               limit: 1
            }
         }
      }
   }
] )

[
   {
      _id: 0,
      items: [ { item_id: 2, quantity: 1, price: 240, name: 'briefcase' } ]
   },
   {
      _id: 1,
      items: [ { item_id: 23, quantity: 3, price: 110, name: 'notebook' } ]
   },
   { _id: 2, items: [] }
]

limit Greater than Possible Matches

The example uses a limit field value that is larger than the possible number of matching elements that can be returned. In this case, limit does not affect the query results and returns all documents matching the $gte filter criteria.

db.sales.aggregate( [
   {
      $project: {
         items: {
            $filter: {
               input: "$items",
               as: "item",
               cond: { $gte: [ "$$item.price", 100] },
               limit: 5
            }
         }
      }
   }
] )

[
   {
      _id: 0,
      items: [ { item_id: 2, quantity: 1, price: 240, name: 'briefcase' } ]
   },
   {
      _id: 1,
      items: [
         { item_id: 23, quantity: 3, price: 110, name: 'notebook' },
         { item_id: 38, quantity: 1, price: 300, name: 'printer' }
      ]
   },
   { _id: 2, items: [] }
]

Filter Based on String Equality Match

The following aggregation filters for items that have a name value of pen.

db.sales.aggregate( [
   {
      $project: {
         items: {
            $filter: {
               input: "$items",
               as: "item",
               cond: { $eq: [ "$$item.name", "pen"] }
            }
         }
      }
   }
] )

[
   {
      _id: 0,
      items: [ { item_id: 43, quantity: 2, price: 10, name: 'pen' } ]
   },
   {
      _id: 1,
      items: [ { item_id: 103, quantity: 4, price: 5, name: 'pen' } ]
   },
   { _id: 2, items: [] }
]

Filter Based on Regular Expression Match

The following aggregation uses $regexMatch to filter for items that have a name value that starts with p:

db.sales.aggregate( [
   {
      $project: {
         items: {
            $filter: {
               input: "$items",
               as: "item",
               cond: {
                  $regexMatch: { input: "$$item.name", regex: /^p/ }
               }
            }
         }
      }
   }
] )

[
   {
      _id: 0,
      items: [ { item_id: 43, quantity: 2, price: 10, name: 'pen' } ]
   },
   {
      _id: 1,
      items: [
         { item_id: 103, quantity: 4, price: 5, name: 'pen' },
         { item_id: 38, quantity: 1, price: 300, name: 'printer' }
      ]
   },
   {
      _id: 2,
      items: [ { item_id: 4, quantity: 1, price: 23, name: 'paper' } ]
   }
]

Access the Index of Each Item in an Array

Create a sample collection named people with these documents:

db.people.insertMany( [
   { _id: 1, name: "Melissa", hobbies: [ "softball", "drawing", "reading" ] },
   { _id: 2, name: "Brad", hobbies: [ "gaming", "skateboarding" ] },
   { _id: 3, name: "Scott", hobbies: [ "basketball", "music", "fishing" ] },
   { _id: 4, name: "Tracey", hobbies: [ "acting", "yoga" ] },
   { _id: 5, name: "Josh", hobbies: [ "programming" ] },
   { _id: 6, name: "Claire" }
] )

The hobbies field contains an array of each person's hobbies in ranked order. The first hobby in the array is the person's primary hobby that the person spends the most time on. The first hobby has an array index of 0.

The following example uses arrayIndexAs. The myIndex variable has the index of each hobby in the hobbies array. The example returns documents with these fields:

• Person name.

• secondaryHobbies array that includes every other hobby.

db.people.aggregate( [
   {
      $project: {
         _id: 0,
         name: 1,
         secondaryHobbies: {
            $filter: {
               input: "$hobbies",
               arrayIndexAs: "myIndex",
               cond: { $eq: [ { $mod: [ "$$myIndex", 2 ] }, 0 ] }
            }
         }
      }
   }
] )

Output:

[
   { "name" : "Melissa", "secondaryHobbies" : [ "softball", "reading" ] }
   { "name" : "Brad", "secondaryHobbies" : [ "gaming" ] }
   { "name" : "Scott", "secondaryHobbies" : [ "basketball", "fishing" ] }
   { "name" : "Tracey", "secondaryHobbies" : [ "acting" ] }
   { "name" : "Josh", "secondaryHobbies" : [ "programming" ] }
   { "name" : "Claire", "secondaryHobbies" : null }
]

Use $$IDX to Access the Index

The $$IDX variable returns the index of the current element in the input array. You can use $$IDX if you omit the arrayIndexAs field from the expression.

The following example returns the same documents as the example in the previous section Access the Index of Each Item in an Array, but uses $$IDX instead of arrayIndexAs:

db.people.aggregate( [
   {
      $project: {
         _id: 0,
         name: 1,
         secondaryHobbies: {
            $filter: {
               input: "$hobbies",
               cond: { $eq: [ { $mod: [ "$$IDX", 2 ] }, 0 ] }
            }
         }
      }
   }
] )