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Change Events

Change Events

The following document represents all possible fields that a change stream response document can have.

{
   _id : { <BSON Object> },
   "operationType" : "<operation>",
   "fullDocument" : { <document> },
   "ns" : {
      "db" : "<database>",
      "coll" : "<collection>"
   },
   "to" : {
      "db" : "<database>",
      "coll" : "<collection>"
   },
   "documentKey" : { "_id" : <value> },
   "updateDescription" : {
      "updatedFields" : { <document> },
      "removedFields" : [ "<field>", ... ]
   },
   "clusterTime" : <Timestamp>,
   "txnNumber" : <NumberLong>,
   "lsid" : {
      "id" : <UUID>,
      "uid" : <BinData>
   }
}

Some fields are only available for certain operations, such as updates. The following table describes each field in the change stream response document:

Field Type Description
_id document

A BSON object which serves as an identifier for the change stream event. This value is used as the resumeToken for the resumeAfter parameter when resuming a change stream. The _id object has the following form:

{
   "_data" : <BinData|hex string>
}

The _data type depends on the MongoDB versions and, in some cases, the feature compatibility version (fCV) at the time of the change stream’s opening/resumption. See Resume Tokens for the full list of _data types.

See Resume a Change Stream for an example of resuming a change stream by resumeToken.

operationType string

The type of operation that occurred. Can be any of the following values:

  • insert
  • delete
  • replace
  • update
  • drop
  • rename
  • dropDatabase
  • invalidate
fullDocument document

The document created or modified by the insert, replace, delete, update operations (i.e. CRUD operations).

For insert and replace operations, this represents the new document created by the operation.

For delete operations, this field is omitted as the document no longer exists.

For update operations, this field only appears if you configured the change stream with fullDocument set to updateLookup. This field then represents the most current majority-committed version of the document modified by the update operation. This document may differ from the changes described in updateDescription if other majority-committed operations modified the document between the original update operation and the full document lookup.

ns document The namespace (database and or collection) affected by the event.
ns.db string The name of the database.
ns.coll string

The name of the collection.

For dropDatabase operations, this field is omitted.

to document When operationType : rename, this document displays the new name for the ns collection. This document is omitted for all other values of operationType.
to.db string The new name of the database.
to.coll string The new name of the collection.
documentKey document A document that contains the _id of the document created or modified by the insert, replace, delete, update operations (i.e. CRUD operations). For sharded collections, also displays the full shard key for the document. The _id field is not repeated if it is already a part of the shard key.
updateDescription document

A document describing the fields that were updated or removed by the update operation.

This document and its fields only appears if the operationType is update.

updateDescription.
updatedFields
document A document whose keys correspond to the fields that were modified by the update operation. The value of each field corresponds to the new value of those fields, rather than the operation that resulted in the new value.
updateDescription.
removedFields
array An array of fields that were removed by the update operation.
clusterTime Timestamp

The timestamp from the oplog entry associated with the event.

For events that happened as part of a multi-document transaction, the associated change stream notifications will have the same clusterTime value, namely the time when the transaction was committed.

New in version 4.0.

txnNumber NumberLong

The transaction number.

Only present if the operation is part of a multi-document transaction.

New in version 4.0.

lsid Document

The identifier for the session associated with the transaction.

Only present if the operation is part of a multi-document transaction.

New in version 4.0.

insert Event

The following example illustrates an insert event:

{
   _id: { < Resume Token > },
   operationType: 'insert',
   clusterTime: <Timestamp>,
   ns: {
      db: 'engineering',
      coll: 'users'
   },
   documentKey: {
      userName: 'alice123',
      _id: ObjectId("599af247bb69cd89961c986d")
   },
   fullDocument: {
      _id: ObjectId("599af247bb69cd89961c986d"),
      userName: 'alice123',
      name: 'Alice'
   }
}

The documentKey field includes both the _id and the userName field. This indicates that the engineering.users collection is sharded, with a shard key on userName and _id.

The fullDocument document represents the version of the document at the time of the insert.

update Event

The following example illustrates an update event:

{
   _id: { < Resume Token > },
   operationType: 'update',
   clusterTime: <Timestamp>,
   ns: {
      db: 'engineering',
      coll: 'users'
   },
   documentKey: {
      _id: ObjectId("58a4eb4a30c75625e00d2820")
   },
   updateDescription: {
      updatedFields: {
         email: 'alice@10gen.com'
      },
      removedFields: ['phoneNumber']
   }
}

The following example illustrates an update event for change streams opened with the fullDocument : updateLookup option:

{
   _id: { < Resume Token > },
   operationType: 'update',
   clusterTime: <Timestamp>,
   ns: {
      db: 'engineering',
      coll: 'users'
   },
   documentKey: {
      _id: ObjectId("58a4eb4a30c75625e00d2820")
   },
   updateDescription: {
      updatedFields: {
         email: 'alice@10gen.com'
      },
      removedFields: ['phoneNumber']
   },
   fullDocument: {
      _id: ObjectId("58a4eb4a30c75625e00d2820"),
      name: 'Alice',
      userName: 'alice123',
      email: 'alice@10gen.com',
      team: 'replication'
   }
}

The fullDocument document represents the most current majority-committed version of the updated document. The fullDocument document may vary from the document at the time of the update operation depending on the number of interleaving majority-committed operations that occur between the update operation and the document lookup.

replace Event

The following example illustrates a replace event:

{
   _id: { < Resume Token > },
   operationType: 'replace',
   clusterTime: <Timestamp>,
   ns: {
      db: 'engineering',
      coll: 'users'
   },
   documentKey: {
      _id: ObjectId("599af247bb69cd89961c986d")
   },
   fullDocument: {
      _id: ObjectId("599af247bb69cd89961c986d"),
      userName: 'alice123',
      name: 'Alice'
   }
}

A replace operation uses the update command, and consists of two stages:

  • Delete the original document with the documentKey and
  • Insert the new document using the same documentkey

The fullDocument of a replace event represents the document after the insert of the replacement document.

delete Event

The following example illustrates a delete event:

{
   _id: { < Resume Token > },
   operationType: 'delete',
   clusterTime: <Timestamp>,
   ns: {
      db: 'engineering',
      coll: 'users'
   },
   documentKey: {
      _id: ObjectId("599af247bb69cd89961c986d")
   }
}

The fullDocument document is omitted as the document no longer exists at the time the change stream cursor sends the delete event to the client.

drop Event

New in version 4.0.1.

A drop event occurs when a collection is dropped from a database. The following example illustrates a drop event:

{
   _id: { < Resume Token > },
   operationType: 'drop',
   clusterTime: <Timestamp>,
   ns: {
      db: 'engineering',
      coll: 'users'
   }
}

A drop event leads to an invalidate event for change streams opened against its ns collection.

rename Event

New in version 4.0.1.

A rename event occurs when a collection is renamed. The following example illustrates a rename event:

{
   _id: { < Resume Token > },
   operationType: 'rename',
   clusterTime: <Timestamp>,
   ns: {
      db: 'engineering',
      coll: 'users'
   },
   to: {
      db: 'engineering',
      coll: 'people'
   }
}

A rename event leads to an invalidate event for change streams opened against its ns collection or to collection.

dropDatabase Event

New in version 4.0.1.

A dropDatabase event occurs when a database is dropped. The following example illustrates a dropDatabase event:

{
   _id: { < Resume Token > },
   operationType: 'dropDatabase',
   clusterTime: <Timestamp>,
   ns: {
      db: 'engineering'
   }
}

A dropDatabase command generates a drop event for each collection in the database before generating a dropDatabase event for the database.

A dropDatabase event leads to an invalidate event for change streams opened against its ns.db database.

invalidate Event

The following example illustrates an invalidate event:

{
   _id: { < Resume Token > },
   operationType: 'invalidate',
   clusterTime: <Timestamp>
}

For change streams opened up against a collection, a drop event, rename event, or dropDatabase event that affects the watched collection leads to an invalidate event.

For change streams opened up against a database, a dropDatabase event that affects the watched database leads to an invalidate event.

invalidate events close the change stream cursor.

You cannot resume a change stream after an invalidate event (for example, a collection drop or rename) closes the stream.