MongoDB - Day 5 (Data Types in MongoDB)

Before reading this article, I highly recommend reading the following previous parts of the series: 

• MongoDB - Day 1 (Introduction To MongoDB)
• MongoDB - Day 2 (Install MongoDB in Windows)
• MongoDB - Day 3 (Database Basics)
• MongoDB - Day 4 (Basics of Collection)

Internally, MongoDB stores JSON documents in a binary-encoded format called BSON. BSON extends the JSON model to provide additional data types and to be efficient for the encoding and decoding within various languages. It adds support for data types like date and binary that aren't supported in JSON. BSON is a binary serialization format for storing documents and to make Remote Procedure Calls in MongoDB. 

MongoDB supports the following data types. Each data type has a corresponding number. The $type method identifies a data type using it's corresponding number.

Data Type	Number
Double	1
String	2
Object	3
Array	4
Binary Data	5
Undefined	6
Object Id	7
Boolean	9
Date	10
Null	11
Regular Expression	12
JavaScript	13
Symbol	14
JavaScript with scope	15
Integer	16 and 18
Timestamp	10
Min Key	255
Max Key	127

Now we will understand some basic data types using examples.

Double

The Double data type stores floating point values.

Example



In the preceding example we created a variable (double_) of floating type and inserted a float type value into this variable and finally printed the value of this variable.

String

String is the most commonly used data type. They contain a string of text or any other kind of characters. BSON strings are UTF-8. In general, drivers for each programming language convert from the language string format to UTF-8 when serializing and deserializing BSON. If a string is not valid, it will not be saved. This makes it possible to store most international characters in BSON strings.

Example



Object

This data type stores embedded documents. When a document contains another document in the form of key-value pair then such type of document is known as an embedded document.

Example



Array

The Array data type stores arrays. An Array type can store multiple values of multiple data types (Integer, Double, Date, String and so on).

Example



Binary Data

The Binary data type stores binary data.

Example



In the preceding example BinData is the base64 representation of a binary string.

ObjectId

The ObjectId data type stores the document's ID. ObjectId is: small, likely unique, fast to generate and ordered. The size of ObjectId is 12 bytes. These 12 bytes are divided into the following 4 parts.

Part Name	Size(Bytes)
Time Stamp	4
Machine Id	3
Process Id	2
Counter	3

MongoDB uses an _id field for each document to uniquely identiy them. This _id field s a primary something. It can't be a duplicate. Data is stored in hexadecimal format in the _id field.

Example



Boolean

This type stores a boolean value. This data type can be set to either true or false.

Example



Date

This data type stores the current date or time in UNIX time format. MongoDB provides various methods to return the date, either as a string or as a Date object.

Date Method	Description
Date()	returns the current date as a string.
new Date()	returns a Date object using the ISODate() wrapper.
ISODate()	returns a Date object using the ISODate() wrapper.

We can specify your own date time by creating an object of Date and passing a day, month and year into it. Date objects are stored as a 64 bit integer representing the number of milliseconds.

Example



Null

The Null data type stores a Null value.

Example



Integer

The Integer data type stores an integer (Numeric) value. Integer data types are available in two forms 32 bits and 64 bits. An Integer can be 32 bits or 64 bits depending upon the server.

Example



Timestamp

The Timestamp data type stores a timestamp. This can be useful for recording when a document has been modified or added. Timestamp values are a 64 bit value.

• The first 32 bits are a time_t value (seconds since the Unix epoch)
• The second 32 bits are an incrementing ordinal for operations within a given second.

Let us see an example.

Example 1



In the preceding example we can see that the starting value of the Timestamp is (0,0). After the insertion operation the value of the timestamp is (1438791098,1). The first value of the timestamp is the current timestamp and the second value is the order of operation.

Example 2

MongoDB store the current timestamp in ObjectId but we can retrieve this timestamp using the getTimestamp() method.

First we insert a document into the collection then we check the value of the Timestamp.



Now we update a record and again check the value of the Timestamp.



Min/Max keys

Min/Max keys compare a value against the lowest and highest BSON elements. Min and Max keys both are Internal data types. When comparing values of different BSON types, MongoDB uses the following comparison order from lowest to highest:

1. MinKey
2. Null
3. Numbers (ints, longs, doubles)
4. Symbol, String
5. Object
6. Array
7. BinData
8. ObjectId
9. Boolean
10. Date
11. Timestamp
12. Regular Expression
13. MaxKey

Example



Now we insert another document into the collection then sort the result and examine the output:



Regular Expression

The Regular Expression data type stores regular expressions.

Example



Undefined

The Undefined data type stores an undefined value.

Example



Symbol

The Symbol data type is similar to the string data type. Symbol is mainly reserved for languages that use specific symbols.

Example



JavaScript

The JavaScript data type stores JavaScript data without Scope.

Example



JavaScript with Scope

This data type stores JavaScript data with a scope option.

Example



This article explained the basic data types of MongoDB. In the next article we will learn about CRUD operations.