db.collection.validate()

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Description

Compatibility
Syntax
Behavior
Examples

MongoDB with drivers

This page documents a mongosh method. To see the equivalent method in a MongoDB driver, see the corresponding page for your programming language:

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Description

Changed in version 6.2.

db.collection.validate(<documents>)

Validates a collection. The method scans a collection data and indexes for correctness and returns the result. For details of the output, see Validate Output.

Starting in version 5.0, the db.collection.validate() method can also fix inconsistencies in the collection.

Index inconsistencies include:

An index is multikey but there are no multikey fields.
An index has multikeyPaths covering fields that are not multikey.
An index does not have multikeyPaths but there are multikey documents (for indexes built before 3.4).

If any inconsistencies are detected by the db.collection.validate() command, a warning is returned and the repair flag on the index is set to true.

db.collection.validate() also validates any documents that violate the collection's schema validation rules.

The db.collection.validate() method is a wrapper around the validate command.

Compatibility

This method is available in deployments hosted in the following environments:

MongoDB Atlas: The fully managed service for MongoDB deployments in the cloud

Important

This command is not supported in M0, M2, and M5 clusters or in serverless instances. For more information, see Unsupported Commands.

MongoDB Enterprise: The subscription-based, self-managed version of MongoDB
MongoDB Community: The source-available, free-to-use, and self-managed version of MongoDB

Syntax

The db.collection.validate() method has the following syntax:

db.collection.validate( {
   full: <boolean>,  // Optional
   repair: <boolean>,  // Optional, added in MongoDB 5.0
   checkBSONConformance: <boolean>  // Optional, added in MongoDB 6.2
} )

Parameters

The db.collection.validate() method can take the following optional document parameter with the fields:

Field	Type	Description
full	boolean	Optional. A flag that determines whether the command performs a slower but more thorough check or a faster but less thorough check. If `true`, performs a more thorough check with the following exception: Full validation on the `oplog` for WiredTiger skips the more thorough check. If `false`, omits some checks for a faster but less thorough check. The default is `false`. For the WiredTiger storage engine, only the `full` validation process will force a checkpoint and flush all in-memory data to disk before verifying the on-disk data.
repair	boolean	Optional. A flag that determines whether the command performs a repair. If `true`, a repair is performed. If `false`, no repair is performed. The default is `false`. A repair can only be run on a standalone node. The repair fixes these issues: If missing index entries are found, the missing keys are inserted into the index. If extra index entries are found, the extra keys are removed from the index. If multikey documents are found for an index that is not a multikey index, the index is changed to a multikey index. If multikey documents are found that are not specified by an index's multikey paths, the index's multikey paths are updated. If corrupt documents with invalid BSON data are found, the documents are removed. For more information, see the `--repair` option for `mongod` New in version 5.0.
checkBSONConformance	boolean	Optional. If `true`, the collection is checked to ensure the BSON documents conform to the BSON specifications. The checks increase the time to complete the validation operation. Any issues are returned as a warning. `checkBSONConformance`: Default is `false`. Is enabled when `full` is set to `true`. Cannot be used with: `repair` set to `true`. `metadata` set to `true`. New in version 6.2.

Behavior

Performance

The db.collection.validate() method is potentially resource intensive and may impact the performance of your MongoDB instance, particularly on larger data sets.

The db.collection.validate() method obtains an exclusive lock on the collection. This will block all reads and writes on the collection until the operation finishes. When run on a secondary, the operation can block all other operations on that secondary until it finishes.

Warning

Validation has exclusive lock requirements that affect performance on primaries and on secondaries that are servicing reads. Consider only running db.collection.validate() on nodes that are not servicing reads or writes.

To minimize impact on the primary, the majority of the data-bearing (non-arbiter), voting members in the cluster must be available and must not have significant replication lag.

To minimize the impact of the validation operation on client applications, run db.collection.validate() on a secondary node that is not servicing read requests. You can convert the current primary node to a secondary node, by running the rs.stepDown() method.

To completely isolate the db.collection.validate() operation from client traffic, choose one of the following options:

Isolate a replica set member by following the rolling maintenance procedure to temporarily remove it from the cluster.
Convert a secondary node to a replica set hidden member and perform the validation on the hidden node.

Data Throughput Metrics

The $currentOp and the currentOp command include dataThroughputAverage and dataThroughputLastSecond information for validate operations in progress.

The log messages for validate operations include dataThroughputAverage and dataThroughputLastSecond information.

Collection Validation Improvements

Starting in MongoDB 6.2, the validate command and db.collection.validate() method:

Check collections to ensure the BSON documents conform to the BSON specifications.
Check time series collections for internal data inconsistencies.
Have a new option checkBSONConformance that enables comprehensive BSON checks.

Examples

To validate a collection myCollection using the default validation setting (specifically, full: false):
```
db.myCollection.validate()
db.myCollection.validate({ })
db.myCollection.validate( { full: false } )
```
To perform a full validation of collection myCollection, specify full: true:
```
db.myCollection.validate( { full: true } )
```
To repair collection myCollection, specify repair: true:
```
db.myCollection.validate( { repair: true } )
```
To perform additional BSON conformance checks in myCollection, specify checkBSONConformance: true:
```
db.myCollection.validate( { checkBSONConformance: true } )
```

For details of the output, see Validate Output.

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