Mongodb – Retrieve only the queried element in an object array in MongoDB collection

aggregation-frameworkmongodbmongodb-queryprojection

Suppose you have the following documents in my collection:

{  
   "_id":ObjectId("562e7c594c12942f08fe4192"),
   "shapes":[  
      {  
         "shape":"square",
         "color":"blue"
      },
      {  
         "shape":"circle",
         "color":"red"
      }
   ]
},
{  
   "_id":ObjectId("562e7c594c12942f08fe4193"),
   "shapes":[  
      {  
         "shape":"square",
         "color":"black"
      },
      {  
         "shape":"circle",
         "color":"green"
      }
   ]
}

Do query:

db.test.find({"shapes.color": "red"}, {"shapes.color": 1})

Or

db.test.find({shapes: {"$elemMatch": {color: "red"}}}, {"shapes.color": 1})

Returns matched document (Document 1), but always with ALL array items in shapes:

{ "shapes": 
  [
    {"shape": "square", "color": "blue"},
    {"shape": "circle", "color": "red"}
  ] 
}

However, I'd like to get the document (Document 1) only with the array that contains color=red:

{ "shapes": 
  [
    {"shape": "circle", "color": "red"}
  ] 
}

How can I do this?

Best Answer

MongoDB 2.2's new $elemMatch projection operator provides another way to alter the returned document to contain only the first matched shapes element:

db.test.find(
    {"shapes.color": "red"}, 
    {_id: 0, shapes: {$elemMatch: {color: "red"}}});

Returns:

{"shapes" : [{"shape": "circle", "color": "red"}]}

In 2.2 you can also do this using the $ projection operator, where the $ in a projection object field name represents the index of the field's first matching array element from the query. The following returns the same results as above:

db.test.find({"shapes.color": "red"}, {_id: 0, 'shapes.$': 1});

MongoDB 3.2 Update

Starting with the 3.2 release, you can use the new $filter aggregation operator to filter an array during projection, which has the benefit of including all matches, instead of just the first one.

db.test.aggregate([
    // Get just the docs that contain a shapes element where color is 'red'
    {$match: {'shapes.color': 'red'}},
    {$project: {
        shapes: {$filter: {
            input: '$shapes',
            as: 'shape',
            cond: {$eq: ['$$shape.color', 'red']}
        }},
        _id: 0
    }}
])

Results:

[ 
    {
        "shapes" : [ 
            {
                "shape" : "circle",
                "color" : "red"
            }
        ]
    }
]
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