$group (aggregation)

Optimization to Return the First Document of Each Group

If a pipeline sorts and groups by the same field and the $group stage only uses the $first accumulator operator, consider adding an index on the grouped field which matches the sort order. In some cases, the $group stage can use the index to quickly find the first document of each group.

db.foo.aggregate([
  {
    $sort:{ x : 1, y : 1 }
  },
  {
    $group: {
      _id: { x : "$x" },
      y: { $first : "$y" }
    }
  }
])

Slot-Based Query Execution Engine

Starting in version 5.2, MongoDB uses the slot-based execution query engine to execute $group stages if either:

• $group is the first stage in the pipeline.

• All preceding stages in the pipeline can also be executed by the slot-based engine.

For more information, see $group Optimization.

Group by Day of the Year

The following pipeline calculates the total sales amount, average sales quantity, and sale count for each day in the year 2014:

db.sales.aggregate([
  // First Stage
  {
    $match : { "date": { $gte: new ISODate("2014-01-01"), $lt: new ISODate("2015-01-01") } }
  },
  // Second Stage
  {
    $group : {
       _id : { $dateToString: { format: "%Y-%m-%d", date: "$date" } },
       totalSaleAmount: { $sum: { $multiply: [ "$price", "$quantity" ] } },
       averageQuantity: { $avg: "$quantity" },
       count: { $sum: 1 }
    }
  },
  // Third Stage
  {
    $sort : { totalSaleAmount: -1 }
  }
 ])

First Stage:

The $match stage filters the documents to only pass documents from the year 2014 to the next stage.

Second Stage:

The $group stage groups the documents by date and calculates the total sale amount, average quantity, and total count of the documents in each group.

Third Stage:

The $sort stage sorts the results by the total sale amount for each group in descending order.

The operation returns the following results:

{
   "_id" : "2014-04-04",
   "totalSaleAmount" : Decimal128("200"),
   "averageQuantity" : 15, "count" : 2
}
{
   "_id" : "2014-03-15",
   "totalSaleAmount" : Decimal128("50"),
   "averageQuantity" : 10, "count" : 1
}
{
   "_id" : "2014-03-01",
   "totalSaleAmount" : Decimal128("40"),
   "averageQuantity" : 1.5, "count" : 2
}

This aggregation operation is equivalent to the following SQL statement:

SELECT date,
       Sum(( price * quantity )) AS totalSaleAmount,
       Avg(quantity)             AS averageQuantity,
       Count(*)                  AS Count
FROM   sales
WHERE  date >= '01/01/2014' AND date < '01/01/2015'
GROUP  BY date
ORDER  BY totalSaleAmount DESC

Group by null

The following aggregation operation specifies a group _id of null, calculating the total sale amount, average quantity, and count of all documents in the collection.

db.sales.aggregate([
  {
    $group : {
       _id : null,
       totalSaleAmount: { $sum: { $multiply: [ "$price", "$quantity" ] } },
       averageQuantity: { $avg: "$quantity" },
       count: { $sum: 1 }
    }
  }
 ])

The operation returns the following result:

{
  "_id" : null,
  "totalSaleAmount" : Decimal128("452.5"),
  "averageQuantity" : 7.875,
  "count" : 8
}

This aggregation operation is equivalent to the following SQL statement:

SELECT Sum(price * quantity) AS totalSaleAmount,
       Avg(quantity)         AS averageQuantity,
       Count(*)              AS Count
FROM   sales

Group title by author

The following aggregation operation pivots the data in the books collection to have titles grouped by authors.

db.books.aggregate([
   { $group : { _id : "$author", books: { $push: "$title" } } }
 ])

The operation returns the following documents:

{ "_id" : "Homer", "books" : [ "The Odyssey", "Iliad" ] }
{ "_id" : "Dante", "books" : [ "The Banquet", "Divine Comedy", "Eclogues" ] }

Group Documents by author

The following aggregation operation groups documents by author:

db.books.aggregate([
   // First Stage
   {
     $group : { _id : "$author", books: { $push: "$$ROOT" } }
   },
   // Second Stage
   {
     $addFields:
       {
         totalCopies : { $sum: "$books.copies" }
       }
   }
 ])

First Stage:

$group uses the $$ROOT system variable to group the entire documents by authors. This stage passes the following documents to the next stage:

{ "_id" : "Homer",
  "books" :
    [
       { "_id" : 7000, "title" : "The Odyssey", "author" : "Homer", "copies" : 10 },
       { "_id" : 7020, "title" : "Iliad", "author" : "Homer", "copies" : 10 }
    ]
 },
 { "_id" : "Dante",
   "books" :
     [
       { "_id" : 8751, "title" : "The Banquet", "author" : "Dante", "copies" : 2 },
       { "_id" : 8752, "title" : "Divine Comedy", "author" : "Dante", "copies" : 1 },
       { "_id" : 8645, "title" : "Eclogues", "author" : "Dante", "copies" : 2 }
     ]
 }

Second Stage:

$addFields adds a field to the output containing the total copies of books for each author.

Note

The resulting documents must not exceed the BSON Document Size limit of 16 megabytes.

The operation returns the following documents:

{
  "_id" : "Homer",
  "books" :
     [
       { "_id" : 7000, "title" : "The Odyssey", "author" : "Homer", "copies" : 10 },
       { "_id" : 7020, "title" : "Iliad", "author" : "Homer", "copies" : 10 }
     ],
   "totalCopies" : 20
}
{
  "_id" : "Dante",
  "books" :
     [
       { "_id" : 8751, "title" : "The Banquet", "author" : "Dante", "copies" : 2 },
       { "_id" : 8752, "title" : "Divine Comedy", "author" : "Dante", "copies" : 1 },
       { "_id" : 8645, "title" : "Eclogues", "author" : "Dante", "copies" : 2 }
     ],
   "totalCopies" : 5
}