Question

How flexible is the aggregate function for output formatting in MongoDB?

Data format:

{
        "_id" : ObjectId("506ddd1900a47d802702a904"),
        "port_name" : "CL1-A",
        "metric" : "772.0",
        "port_number" : "0",
        "datetime" : ISODate("2012-10-03T14:03:00Z"),
        "array_serial" : "12345"
}

Right now I’m using this aggregate function to return an array of DateTime, an array of metrics, and a count:

{$match : { 'array_serial' : array, 
                            'port_name' : { $in : ports},
                            'datetime' : { $gte : from, $lte : to}
                        }
                },
               {$project : { port_name : 1, metric : 1, datetime: 1}},
               {$group : { _id : "$port_name", 
                            datetime : { $push : "$datetime"},
                            metric : { $push : "$metric"},
                            count : { $sum : 1}}}

Which is nice, and very fast, but is there a way to format the output so there’s one array per datetime/metric? Like this:

[
    {
      "_id" : "portname",
      "data" : [
                ["2012-10-01T00:00:00.000Z", 1421.01],
                ["2012-10-01T00:01:00.000Z", 1361.01],
                ["2012-10-01T00:02:00.000Z", 1221.01]
               ]
    }
]

This would greatly simplify the front-end as that’s the format the chart code expects.

Answer 1

Combining two fields into an array of values with the Aggregation Framework is possible, but definitely isn’t as straightforward as it could be (at least as at MongoDB 2.2.0).

Here is an example:

db.metrics.aggregate(

    // Find matching documents first (can take advantage of index)
    { $match : {
        'array_serial' : array, 
        'port_name' : { $in : ports},
        'datetime' : { $gte : from, $lte : to}
    }},

    // Project desired fields and add an extra $index for # of array elements
    { $project: {
        port_name: 1,
        datetime: 1,
        metric: 1,
        index: { $const:[0,1] }
    }},

    // Split into document stream based on $index
    { $unwind: '$index' },

    // Re-group data using conditional to create array [$datetime, $metric]
    { $group: {
        _id: { id: '$_id', port_name: '$port_name' },
        data: {
            $push: { $cond:[ {$eq:['$index', 0]}, '$datetime', '$metric'] }
        },
    }},

    // Sort results
    { $sort: { _id:1 } },

    // Final group by port_name with data array and count
    { $group: {
        _id: '$_id.port_name',
        data: { $push: '$data' },
        count: { $sum: 1 }
    }}
)