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Aggregation Pipeline Operators

$last (expression operator)

Definition

$last

Changed in version 5.0.

Returns the value that results from applying an expression to the last document in a group of documents. Only meaningful when documents are in a defined order.

$last is available in these stages:

Note

Disambiguation

This page describes the $last aggregation accumulator. For the $last array operator, see $last (array operator).

Syntax

$last syntax:

{ $last: <expression> }

For more information on expressions, see Expressions.

Behavior

To define the document order for $last with the:

Note

Although the $sort stage passes ordered documents as input to the $group and $setWindowFields stages, those stages are not guaranteed to maintain the sort order in their own output.

When used with $setWindowFields, $last returns null for empty windows. An example empty window is a { documents: [ -1, -1 ] } documents window on the first document of a partition.

Examples

Use in $group Stage

Consider a sales collection with the following documents:

db.sales.insertMany( [
   { _id : 1, "item" : "abc", "date" : ISODate("2014-01-01T08:00:00Z"), "price" : 10, "quantity" : 2 },
   { _id : 2, "item" : "jkl", "date" : ISODate("2014-02-03T09:00:00Z"), "price" : 20, "quantity" : 1 },
   { _id : 3, "item" : "xyz", "date" : ISODate("2014-02-03T09:05:00Z"), "price" : 5, "quantity" : 5 },
   { _id : 4, "item" : "abc", "date" : ISODate("2014-02-15T08:00:00Z"), "price" : 10, "quantity" : 10 },
   { _id : 5, "item" : "xyz", "date" : ISODate("2014-02-15T09:05:00Z"), "price" : 5, "quantity" : 10 },
   { _id : 6, "item" : "xyz", "date" : ISODate("2014-02-15T12:05:10Z"), "price" : 5, "quantity" : 5 },
   { _id : 7, "item" : "xyz", "date" : ISODate("2014-02-15T14:12:12Z"), "price" : 5, "quantity" : 10 }
] )

The following operation first sorts the documents by item and date, and then in the following $group stage, groups the now sorted documents by the item field and uses the $last accumulator to compute the last sales date for each item:

db.sales.aggregate(
   [
     { $sort: { item: 1, date: 1 } },
     {
       $group:
         {
           _id: "$item",
           lastSalesDate: { $last: "$date" }
         }
     }
   ]
)

The operation returns the following results:

{ "_id" : "xyz", "lastSalesDate" : ISODate("2014-02-15T14:12:12Z") }
{ "_id" : "jkl", "lastSalesDate" : ISODate("2014-02-03T09:00:00Z") }
{ "_id" : "abc", "lastSalesDate" : ISODate("2014-02-15T08:00:00Z") }

Use in $setWindowFields Stage

New in version 5.0.

Create a cakeSales collection that contains cake sales in the states of California (CA) and Washington (WA):

db.cakeSales.insertMany( [
   { _id: 0, type: "chocolate", orderDate: new Date("2020-05-18T14:10:30Z"),
     state: "CA", price: 13, quantity: 120 },
   { _id: 1, type: "chocolate", orderDate: new Date("2021-03-20T11:30:05Z"),
     state: "WA", price: 14, quantity: 140 },
   { _id: 2, type: "vanilla", orderDate: new Date("2021-01-11T06:31:15Z"),
     state: "CA", price: 12, quantity: 145 },
   { _id: 3, type: "vanilla", orderDate: new Date("2020-02-08T13:13:23Z"),
     state: "WA", price: 13, quantity: 104 },
   { _id: 4, type: "strawberry", orderDate: new Date("2019-05-18T16:09:01Z"),
     state: "CA", price: 41, quantity: 162 },
   { _id: 5, type: "strawberry", orderDate: new Date("2019-01-08T06:12:03Z"),
     state: "WA", price: 43, quantity: 134 }
] )

This example uses $last in the $setWindowFields stage to output the last cake sales order type for each state:

db.cakeSales.aggregate( [
   {
      $setWindowFields: {
         partitionBy: "$state",
         sortBy: { orderDate: 1 },
         output: {
            lastOrderTypeForState: {
               $last: "$type",
               window: {
                  documents: [ "current", "unbounded" ]
               }
            }
         }
      }
   }
] )

In the example:

  • partitionBy: "$state" partitions the documents in the collection by state. There are partitions for CA and WA.

  • sortBy: { orderDate: 1 } sorts the documents in each partition by orderDate in ascending order (1), so the earliest orderDate is first.

  • output sets the lastOrderTypeForState field to the last order type from the documents window.

    The window contains documents between the current lower limit, which is the current document in the output, and the unbounded upper limit. This means $last returns the last order type for the documents between the current document and the end of the partition.

In this output, the last order type value for CA and WA is shown in the lastOrderTypeForState field:

{ "_id" : 4, "type" : "strawberry", "orderDate" : ISODate("2019-05-18T16:09:01Z"),
  "state" : "CA", "price" : 41, "quantity" : 162, "lastOrderTypeForState" : "vanilla" }
{ "_id" : 0, "type" : "chocolate", "orderDate" : ISODate("2020-05-18T14:10:30Z"),
  "state" : "CA", "price" : 13, "quantity" : 120, "lastOrderTypeForState" : "vanilla" }
{ "_id" : 2, "type" : "vanilla", "orderDate" : ISODate("2021-01-11T06:31:15Z"),
  "state" : "CA", "price" : 12, "quantity" : 145, "lastOrderTypeForState" : "vanilla" }
{ "_id" : 5, "type" : "strawberry", "orderDate" : ISODate("2019-01-08T06:12:03Z"),
  "state" : "WA", "price" : 43, "quantity" : 134, "lastOrderTypeForState" : "chocolate" }
{ "_id" : 3, "type" : "vanilla", "orderDate" : ISODate("2020-02-08T13:13:23Z"),
  "state" : "WA", "price" : 13, "quantity" : 104, "lastOrderTypeForState" : "chocolate" }
{ "_id" : 1, "type" : "chocolate", "orderDate" : ISODate("2021-03-20T11:30:05Z"),
  "state" : "WA", "price" : 14, "quantity" : 140, "lastOrderTypeForState" : "chocolate" }

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