Building Your First App: An Introduction to MongoDB

MongoDB Miami February 7, 2013

Building your first app;
an introduction to
MongoDB
Robert Stam
Software Engineer, 10gen

MongoDB isa ___________
database
• Document
• Open source
• High performance
• Horizontally scalable
• Full featured

Document Database
• Not for .PDF & .DOC files
• A document is essentially an associative array
• Document == JSON object
• Document == PHP Array
• Document == Python Dict
• Document == Ruby Hash
• etc

Open Source
• MongoDB is an open source project
• On GitHub
• Licensed under the AGPL
• Started & sponsored by 10gen
• Commercial licenses available
• Contributions welcome

High Performance
• Written in C++
• Extensive use of memory-mapped files
i.e. read-through write-through memory caching.
• Runs nearly everywhere
• Data serialized as BSON (fast parsing)
• Full support for primary & secondary indexes
• Document model = less work

Full Featured
• Ad Hoc queries
• Real time aggregation
• Rich query capabilities
• Traditionally consistent
• Geospatial features
• Support for most programming languages
• Flexible schema

http://www.mongodb.org/download
s

RDBMS MongoDB
Table, View ➜ Collection
Row ➜ Document
Index ➜ Index
Join ➜ Embedded Document
Foreign Key ➜ Reference
Partition ➜ Shard

Terminology

We will build a library
management application
http://www.flickr.com/photos/somegeekintn/3484353131/

First step in any application is
Determine your entities

Library Management Application
Entities
• Library Patrons (users)
• Books (catalog)
• Authors
• Publishers
• Categories ??

In a relational based app
We would start by doing
schema design

Relational schema design
• Large ERD Diagrams
• Complex create table statements
• ORMs to map tables to objects
• Tables just to join tables together
• For this simple app we'd have 5 tables and 5 join
tables
• Lots of revisions until we get it just right

In a MongoDB based app
We start building our
and let the schema evolve
app

MongoDB collections
• Users
• Books
• Authors
• Publishers

No common language
so using the shell

Start with an object
(or array, hash, dict, etc)

user= {
username: 'fred.jones',
first_name: 'fred',
last_name: 'jones',
}

Insert the record

>db.users.insert(user)

No collection creation
needed

Querying for the user
>db.users.findOne()
{
"_id": ObjectId("50804d0bd94ccab2da652599"),
"username" : "fred.jones",
"first_name" : "fred",
"last_name" : "jones"
}

_id
• _id is the primary key in MongoDB
• Automatically indexed
• Automatically created as an ObjectId if not
provided
• Any unique immutable value could be used

ObjectId
• ObjectId is a special 12 byte value
• Guaranteed to be unique across your cluster
• ObjectId("50804d0bd94ccab2da652599")
|-------------||---------||-----||----------|
tsmacpidinc

Creating an author
>db.author.insert({
first_name: 'j.r.r.',
last_name: 'tolkien',
bio: 'J.R.R. Tolkien (1892.1973), beloved throughout the world as the
creator of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, was a professor of
Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, a fellow of Pembroke College, and a fellow
of Merton College until his retirement in 1959. His chief interest was
the linguistic aspects of the early English written tradition, but even
as he studied these classics he was creating a set of his own.'
})

Querying for our author
>db.author.findOne( { last_name : 'tolkien' } )
{
"_id" : ObjectId("507ffbb1d94ccab2da652597"),
"first_name" : "j.r.r.",
"last_name" : "tolkien",
"bio" : "J.R.R. Tolkien (1892.1973), beloved throughout the world as
the creator of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, was a
professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, a fellow of Pembroke College,
and a fellow of Merton College until his retirement in 1959. His chief
interest was the linguistic aspects of the early English written
tradition, but even as he studied these classics he was creating a
set of his own."
}

Creating a Book
>db.books.insert({
title: 'fellowship of the ring, the',
author: ObjectId("507ffbb1d94ccab2da652597"),
language: 'english',
genre: ['fantasy', 'adventure'],
publication: {
name: 'georgeallen&unwin',
location: 'London',
date: new Date('21 July 1954'),
}
})

http://society6.com/PastaSoup/The-Fellowship-of-the-Ring-ZZc_Print/

Multiple values per key
>db.books.findOne({language: 'english'}, {genre: 1})
{
"_id" : ObjectId("50804391d94ccab2da652598"),
"genre" : [
"fantasy",
"adventure"
]
}

Querying for key with
multiple values
>db.books.findOne({genre: 'fantasy'}, {title: 1})
{
"title" : "fellowship of the ring, the"
}

Query key with single value or
multiple values the same way.

Nested Values
>db.books.findOne({}, {publication: 1})
{
"_id" : ObjectId("50804ec7d94ccab2da65259a"),
"publication" : {
"name" : "georgeallen&unwin",
"location" : "London",
"date" : ISODate("1954-07-21T04:00:00Z")
}
}

Reach into nested values
using dot notation
>db.books.findOne(
{'publication.date' :
{ $lt : new Date('21 June 1960')}
}
)
{
"title" : "fellowship of the ring, the",
"author" : ObjectId("507ffbb1d94ccab2da652597"),
"language" : "english",
"genre" : [ "fantasy","adventure" ],
"publication" : {
"date" : ISODate("1954-07-21T04:00:00Z")
}
}

Update books
>db.books.update(
{"_id" : ObjectId("50804391d94ccab2da652598")},
{ $set : {
isbn: '0547928211',
pages: 432
}
})

True agile development .
Simply change how you work with
the data and the database follows

The Updated Book record
db.books.findOne()
{
"_id" : ObjectId("50804ec7d94ccab2da65259a"),
"genre" : [ "fantasy", "adventure" ],
"isbn" : "0395082544",
"language": "english",
"pages": 432,
"publication" : {
"date" : ISODate("1954-07-21T04:00:00Z")
},
}

Creating indexes
>db.books.ensureIndex({title: 1})

>db.books.ensureIndex({genre : 1})

>db.books.ensureIndex({'publication.date': -1})

Querying with RegEx
>db.books.findOne({title : /^fell/})
{
"_id": ObjectId("50804ec7d94ccab2da65259a"),
"genre" : [ "fantasy", "adventure"],
"isbn" : "0395082544",
"pages" : 432,
"publication" : {
"date" : ISODate("1954-07-21T04:00:00Z")
},
}

Adding a few more books
>db.books.insert({
title: 'two towers, the',
isbn: "034523510X",
pages: 447,
publication: {
location: 'London',
date: new Date('11 Nov 1954'),
}
})

http://society6.com/PastaSoup/The-Two-Towers-XTr_Print/

Adding a few more books
>db.books.insert({
title: 'return of the king, the',
isbn : "0345248295",
pages: 544,
publication: {
location: 'London',
date: new Date('20 Oct 1955'),
}
})

http://society6.com/PastaSoup/The-Return-of-the-King-Jsc_Print/

Cursors
>db.books.find(
{ author: ObjectId("507ffbb1d94ccab2da652597")})
.sort({ 'publication.date' : -1})
.limit(1)
{
"_id": ObjectId("5080d33ed94ccab2da65259d"),
"title" : "return of the king, the",
"isbn" : "0345248295",
"genre" : [ "fantasy", "adventure" ],
"pages" : 544,
"publication" : {
"date" : ISODate("1955-10-20T04:00:00Z")
}
}

Paging
page_num= 3; results_per_page= 10;  cursor=
db.books.find()  .sort({"publication.date":-1}) 
.skip((page_num - 1)*results_per_page) 
.limit(results_per_page);

Finding author by book
>book= db.books.findOne(
{"title" : "return of the king, the"})

>db.author.findOne({_id: book.author})
{
"_id": ObjectId("507ffbb1d94ccab2da652597"),
"first_name" : "j.r.r.",
"last_name" : "tolkien",
"bio" : "J.R.R. Tolkien (1892.1973), beloved throughout the world as the
creator of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, was a professor of
Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, a fellow of Pembroke College, and a fellow of
Merton College until his retirement in 1959. His chief interest was the
linguistic aspects of the early English written tradition, but even as he
studied these classics he was creating a set of his own."
}

Real applications are not
built in the shell

MongoDB has native
bindings for over 12
languages

Building Your First App: An Introduction to MongoDB

MongoDB drivers
• Official Support for 12 languages
• Community drivers for tons more
• Drivers connect to mongo servers
• Drivers translate BSON into native types
• mongo shell is not a driver, but works like one in
some ways
• Installed using typical means (npm, pecl, gem,
pip)

We've introduced a lot of
concepts here

MongoDB Miami February 7, 2013

Questions?
Robert Stam
Software Engineer, 10gen

Building Your First App: An Introduction to MongoDB

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Editor's Notes