Learning basic MongoDB by installing and using CRUD

Today, we are going to learn MongoDB, including understand what is MongoDB, installation and doing CRUD operation. We start with the basic question.

what is MongoDB?

MongoDB (from "humongous") is a cross-platform document-oriented database. Classified as a NoSQL database, MongoDB eschews the traditional table-based relational database structure in favor of JSON-like documents with dynamic schemas (MongoDB calls the format BSON), making the integration of data in certain types of applications easier and faster.

With that said, let's move on to install MongoDB. There are many ways to install MongoDB but with this article, the one I'm chosen is to install MongoDB using deb package built by MongoDB. Even though MongoDB comes with ubuntu however the version in the repository is just too old. Current in the ubuntu repository, mongodb version is 1:2.4.9-1ubuntu2 and meanwhile official production release version is 2.6.1.

The instructions below are from http://docs.mongodb.org/manual/tutorial/install-mongodb-on-ubuntu/ . But I summarize into one liner. You will add a new MongoDB repository from official database site and install latest version.

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv 7F0CEB10 && echo 'deb http://downloads-distro.mongodb.org/repo/ubuntu-upstart dist 10gen' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb.list && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install mongodb-org

If everything goes well, you should get a similar output installation MongoDB such as below:

jason@localhost:~$ sudo apt-get install mongodb-org
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  jhead libcec2 libgdata-google1.2-1 libgdata1.2-1 libjdependency-java liblockdev1 libmaven-archiver-java libmaven-clean-plugin-java
  libmaven-compiler-plugin-java libmaven-dependency-tree-java libmaven-filtering-java libmaven-install-plugin-java libmaven-jar-plugin-java
  libmaven-resources-plugin-java libmaven-shade-plugin-java libphp-adodb libpigment0.3-11 libplexus-compiler-java libplexus-digest-java oxideqt-codecs-extra
  php-auth-sasl php-cache php-date php-file php-http-request php-log php-mail php-mail-mime php-mdb2 php-mdb2-driver-mysql php-net-dime php-net-ftp
  php-net-smtp php-net-socket php-net-url php-services-weather php-soap php-xml-parser php-xml-serializer printer-driver-c2esp printer-driver-min12xxw
  printer-driver-pnm2ppa printer-driver-pxljr python-axiom python-coherence python-configobj python-epsilon python-gpod python-louie python-nevow python-pgm
  python-pyasn1 python-storm python-tagpy python-twill python-twisted-conch python-twisted-web2 qtdeclarative5-window-plugin tinymce2 xbmc-pvr-argustv
  xbmc-pvr-dvbviewer xbmc-pvr-mediaportal-tvserver xbmc-pvr-mythtv-cmyth xbmc-pvr-nextpvr xbmc-pvr-njoy xbmc-pvr-tvheadend-hts xbmc-pvr-vdr-vnsi
  xbmc-pvr-vuplus xdg-user-dirs-gtk
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following extra packages will be installed:
  mongodb-org-mongos mongodb-org-server mongodb-org-shell mongodb-org-tools
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  mongodb-org mongodb-org-mongos mongodb-org-server mongodb-org-shell mongodb-org-tools
0 upgraded, 5 newly installed, 0 to remove and 51 not upgraded.
Need to get 113 MB of archives.
After this operation, 284 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y
Get:1 http://downloads-distro.mongodb.org/repo/ubuntu-upstart/ dist/10gen mongodb-org-shell i386 2.6.1 [4,389 kB]
Get:2 http://downloads-distro.mongodb.org/repo/ubuntu-upstart/ dist/10gen mongodb-org-server i386 2.6.1 [9,308 kB]
Get:3 http://downloads-distro.mongodb.org/repo/ubuntu-upstart/ dist/10gen mongodb-org-mongos i386 2.6.1 [7,045 kB]
Get:4 http://downloads-distro.mongodb.org/repo/ubuntu-upstart/ dist/10gen mongodb-org-tools i386 2.6.1 [92.3 MB]
Get:5 http://downloads-distro.mongodb.org/repo/ubuntu-upstart/ dist/10gen mongodb-org i386 2.6.1 [3,652 B]
Fetched 113 MB in 3min 25s (549 kB/s)
Selecting previously unselected package mongodb-org-shell.
(Reading database ... 564794 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../mongodb-org-shell_2.6.1_i386.deb ...
Unpacking mongodb-org-shell (2.6.1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package mongodb-org-server.
Preparing to unpack .../mongodb-org-server_2.6.1_i386.deb ...
Unpacking mongodb-org-server (2.6.1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package mongodb-org-mongos.
Preparing to unpack .../mongodb-org-mongos_2.6.1_i386.deb ...
Unpacking mongodb-org-mongos (2.6.1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package mongodb-org-tools.
Preparing to unpack .../mongodb-org-tools_2.6.1_i386.deb ...
Unpacking mongodb-org-tools (2.6.1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package mongodb-org.
Preparing to unpack .../mongodb-org_2.6.1_i386.deb ...
Unpacking mongodb-org (2.6.1) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.6.7.1-1) ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-16) ...
Setting up mongodb-org-shell (2.6.1) ...
Setting up mongodb-org-server (2.6.1) ...
Adding system user `mongodb' (UID 143) ...
Adding new user `mongodb' (UID 143) with group `nogroup' ...
Not creating home directory `/home/mongodb'.
Adding group `mongodb' (GID 155) ...
Done.
Adding user `mongodb' to group `mongodb' ...
Adding user mongodb to group mongodb
Done.
mongod start/running, process 22386
Setting up mongodb-org-mongos (2.6.1) ...
Setting up mongodb-org-tools (2.6.1) ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-16) ...
Setting up mongodb-org (2.6.1) ...

Looks like installation processed is done and fine. Even it is already started. So now let's play using mongo db command line.

jason@localhost:~$ mongo
MongoDB shell version: 2.6.1
connecting to: test
Welcome to the MongoDB shell.
For interactive help, type "help".
For more comprehensive documentation, see
	http://docs.mongodb.org/
Questions? Try the support group
	http://groups.google.com/group/mongodb-user
Server has startup warnings:
2014-06-02T22:29:43.933+0800 [initandlisten]
2014-06-02T22:29:43.933+0800 [initandlisten] ** NOTE: This is a 32 bit MongoDB binary.
2014-06-02T22:29:43.933+0800 [initandlisten] **       32 bit builds are limited to less than 2GB of data (or less with --journal).
2014-06-02T22:29:43.933+0800 [initandlisten] **       Note that journaling defaults to off for 32 bit and is currently off.
2014-06-02T22:29:43.933+0800 [initandlisten] **       See http://dochub.mongodb.org/core/32bit
2014-06-02T22:29:43.934+0800 [initandlisten]
>

As you can see, I'm running 32bit cpu, but it should work fine for 64bit cpu and the rest of this article. So everything has been smooth sailing so far, we will start to create, read, update and delete operation.

• create

To create or insert a document, it is as easy as

db.inventory.insert( { _id: 10, type: "misc", item: "card", qty: 15 } )

More insert example

db.inventory.update(
                     { type: "book", item : "journal" },
                     { $set : { qty: 10 } },
                     { upsert : true }
                   )

Interesting insert using save

db.inventory.save( { type: "book", item: "notebook", qty: 40 } )

• read

to read or query document, it is as easy as

db.inventory.update(
                     { type: "book", item : "journal" },
                     { $set : { qty: 10 } },
                     { upsert : true }
                   )

read more example here.

• update

see create above for example.

• delete

to remove all documents,

db.inventory.remove({})

That's it for this lengthy introduction.