How to query MongoDB with “like”

Question

I want to query something with SQL's like query:

SELECT * FROM users  WHERE name LIKE '%m%'

How can I achieve the same in MongoDB? I can't find an operator for like in the documentation.

Answer 1

That would have to be:

db.users.find({"name": /.*m.*/})

Or, similar:

db.users.find({"name": /m/})

You're looking for something that contains "m" somewhere (SQL's '%' operator is equivalent to regular expressions' '.*'), not something that has "m" anchored to the beginning of the string.

Note: MongoDB uses regular expressions which are more powerful than "LIKE" in SQL. With regular expressions you can create any pattern that you imagine.

For more information on regular expressions, refer to Regular expressions (MDN).

Answer 2

db.users.insert({name: 'paulo'})
db.users.insert({name: 'patric'})
db.users.insert({name: 'pedro'})

Therefore:

For:

db.users.find({name: /a/})  // Like '%a%'

Output: paulo, patric

For:

db.users.find({name: /^pa/}) // Like 'pa%'

Output: paulo, patric

For:

db.users.find({name: /ro$/}) //like '%ro'

Output: pedro

Answer 3

In

• PyMongo using Python
• Mongoose using Node.js
• Jongo, using Java
• mgo, using Go

you can do:

db.users.find({'name': {'$regex': 'sometext'}})

Answer 4

In PHP, you could use the following code:

$collection->find(array('name'=> array('$regex' => 'm'));

Answer 5

Here are different types of requirements and solutions for string search with regular expressions.

You can do with a regular expression which contains a word, i.e., like. Also you can use $options => i for a case insensitive search.

Contains string

db.collection.find({name:{'$regex' : 'string', '$options' : 'i'}})

Doesn't contain string, only with a regular expression

db.collection.find({name:{'$regex' : '^((?!string).)*$', '$options' : 'i'}})

Exact case insensitive string

db.collection.find({name:{'$regex' : '^string$', '$options' : 'i'}})

Start with string

db.collection.find({name:{'$regex' : '^string', '$options' : 'i'}})

End with string

db.collection.find({name:{'$regex' : 'string$', '$options' : 'i'}})

Keep Regular Expressions Cheat Sheet as a bookmark, and a reference for any other alterations you may need.

Answer 6

You would use a regular expression for that in MongoDB.

For example,

db.users.find({"name": /^m/})

Answer 7

You have two choices:

db.users.find({"name": /string/})

or

db.users.find({"name": {"$regex": "string", "$options": "i"}})

For the second one, you have more options, like "i" in options to find using case insensitive.

And about the "string", you can use like ".string." (%string%), or "string.*" (string%) and ".*string) (%string) for example. You can use a regular expression as you want.

Answer 8

If using Node.js, it says that you can write this:

db.collection.find( { field: /acme.*corp/i } );

// Or
db.collection.find( { field: { $regex: 'acme.*corp', $options: 'i' } } );

Also, you can write this:

db.collection.find( { field: new RegExp('acme.*corp', 'i') } );

Answer 9

Already you got the answers, but to match with a regular expression with case insensitivity, you could use the following query:

db.users.find ({ "name" : /m/i } ).pretty()

The i in the /m/i indicates case insensitivity and .pretty() provides a prettier output.

Answer 10

For Mongoose in Node.js:

db.users.find({'name': {'$regex': '.*sometext.*'}})

Answer 11

With MongoDB Compass, you need to use the strict mode syntax, as such:

{ "text": { "$regex": "^Foo.*", "$options": "i" } }

(In MongoDB Compass, it's important that you use " instead of ')

Answer 12

You can use the new feature of MongoDB 2.6:

db.foo.insert({desc: "This is a string with text"});
db.foo.insert({desc:"This is a another string with Text"});
db.foo.ensureIndex({"desc":"text"});
db.foo.find({
    $text:{
        $search:"text"
    }
});

Answer 13

In a Node.js project and using Mongoose, use a like query:

var User = mongoose.model('User');

var searchQuery = {};
searchQuery.email = req.query.email;
searchQuery.name = {$regex: req.query.name, $options: 'i'};
User.find(searchQuery, function(error, user) {
                if(error || user === null) {
                    return res.status(500).send(error);
                }
                return res.status(200).send(user);
            });

Answer 14

Using template literals with variables also works:

{"firstname": {$regex : `^${req.body.firstname}.*` , $options: 'si' }}

Answer 15

You can use a where statement to build any JavaScript script:

db.myCollection.find( { $where: "this.name.toLowerCase().indexOf('m') >= 0" } );

Reference: $where

Answer 16

For PHP mongo Like.

I had several issues with PHP mongo like. I found that concatenating the regular expression parameters helps in some situations - PHP mongo find field starts with.

For example,

db()->users->insert(['name' => 'john']);
db()->users->insert(['name' => 'joe']);
db()->users->insert(['name' => 'jason']);

// starts with
$like_var = 'jo';
$prefix = '/^';
$suffix = '/';
$name = $prefix . $like_var . $suffix;
db()->users->find(['name' => array('$regex'=>new MongoRegex($name))]);
output: (joe, john)

// contains
$like_var = 'j';
$prefix = '/';
$suffix = '/';
$name = $prefix . $like_var . $suffix;
db()->users->find(['name' => array('$regex'=>new MongoRegex($name))]);

output: (joe, john, jason)

Answer 17

In Go and the mgo driver:

Collection.Find(bson.M{"name": bson.RegEx{"m", ""}}).All(&result)

where the result is the struct instance of the sought-after type.

Answer 18

In SQL, the ‘like’ query looks like this:

select * from users where name like '%m%'

In the MongoDB console, it looks like this:

db.users.find({"name": /m/})     // Not JSON formatted

db.users.find({"name": /m/}).pretty()  // JSON formatted

In addition, the pretty() method will produce a formatted JSON structure in all the places which is more readable.

Answer 19

Regular expressions are expensive to process.

Another way is to create an index of text and then search it using $search.

Create a text index of fields you want to make searchable:

db.collection.createIndex({name: 'text', otherField: 'text'});

Search for a string in the text index:

db.collection.find({
  '$text'=>{'$search': "The string"}
})

Answer 20

Use regular expressions matching as below. The 'i' shows case insensitivity.

var collections = mongoDatabase.GetCollection("Abcd");

var queryA = Query.And(
         Query.Matches("strName", new BsonRegularExpression("ABCD", "i")), 
         Query.Matches("strVal", new BsonRegularExpression("4121", "i")));

var queryB = Query.Or(
       Query.Matches("strName", new BsonRegularExpression("ABCD","i")),
       Query.Matches("strVal", new BsonRegularExpression("33156", "i")));

var getA = collections.Find(queryA);
var getB = collections.Find(queryB);

Answer 21

A like query would be as shown below:

db.movies.find({title: /.*Twelve Monkeys.*/}).sort({regularizedCorRelation : 1}).limit(10);

For the Scala ReactiveMongo API,

val query = BSONDocument("title" -> BSONRegex(".*" + name + ".*", "")) // like
val sortQ = BSONDocument("regularizedCorRelation" -> BSONInteger(1))
val cursor = collection.find(query).sort(sortQ).options(QueryOpts().batchSize(10)).cursor[BSONDocument]

Answer 22

It seems that there are reasons for using both the JavaScript /regex_pattern/ pattern as well as the MongoDB {'$regex': 'regex_pattern'} pattern. See: MongoDB RegEx Syntax Restrictions

This is not a complete regular expression tutorial, but I was inspired to run these tests after seeing a highly voted ambiguous post above.

> ['abbbb','bbabb','bbbba'].forEach(function(v){db.test_collection.insert({val: v})})

> db.test_collection.find({val: /a/})
{ "val" : "abbbb" }
{ "val" : "bbabb" }
{ "val" : "bbbba" }

> db.test_collection.find({val: /.*a.*/})
{ "val" : "abbbb" }
{ "val" : "bbabb" }
{ "val" : "bbbba" }

> db.test_collection.find({val: /.+a.+/})
{ "val" : "bbabb" }

> db.test_collection.find({val: /^a/})
{ "val" : "abbbb" }

> db.test_collection.find({val: /a$/})
{ "val" : "bbbba" }

> db.test_collection.find({val: {'$regex': 'a$'}})
{ "val" : "bbbba" }

Answer 23

If you are using Spring-Data MongoDB, you can do it in this way:

String tagName = "m";
Query query = new Query();
query.limit(10);
query.addCriteria(Criteria.where("tagName").regex(tagName));

Answer 24

If you have a string variable, you must convert it to a regex, so MongoDB will use a like statement on it.

const name = req.query.title; //John
db.users.find({ "name": new Regex(name) });

Is the same result as:

db.users.find({"name": /John/})

Answer 25

String yourdb={deepakparmar, dipak, parmar}

db.getCollection('yourdb').find({"name":/^dee/})

ans deepakparmar

db.getCollection('yourdb').find({"name":/d/})

ans deepakparmar, dipak

db.getCollection('yourdb').find({"name":/mar$/})

ans deepakparmar, parmar

Answer 26

Use aggregation substring search (with index!!!):

db.collection.aggregate([{
        $project : {
            fieldExists : {
                $indexOfBytes : ['$field', 'string']
            }
        }
    }, {
        $match : {
            fieldExists : {
                $gt : -1
            }
        }
    }, {
        $limit : 5
    }
]);

Answer 27

As the MongoDB shell supports regular expressions, that's completely possible.

db.users.findOne({"name" : /.*sometext.*/});

If we want the query to be case-insensitive, we can use the "i" option, like shown below:

db.users.findOne({"name" : /.*sometext.*/i});

Answer 28

If you want a 'like' search in MongoDB then you should go with $regex. By using it, the query will be:

db.product.find({name:{$regex:/m/i}})

For more, you can read the documentation as well - $regex

Answer 29

You can query with a regular expression:

db.users.find({"name": /m/});

If the string is coming from the user, maybe you want to escape the string before using it. This will prevent literal chars from the user to be interpreted as regex tokens.

For example, searching the string "A." will also match "AB" if not escaped. You can use a simple replace to escape your string before using it. I made it a function for reusing:

function textLike(str) {
  var escaped = str.replace(/[\-\[\]\/\{\}\(\)\*\+\?\.\\\^\$\|]/g, '\\$&');
  return new RegExp(escaped, 'i');
}

So now, the string becomes a case-insensitive pattern matching also the literal dot. Example:

>  textLike('A.');
<  /A\./i

Now we are ready to generate the regular expression on the go:

db.users.find({ "name": textLike("m") });

Answer 30

MongoRegex has been deprecated.

Use MongoDB\BSON\Regex:

$regex = new MongoDB\BSON\Regex ( '^m');
$cursor = $collection->find(array('users' => $regex));
//iterate through the cursor