$split (aggregation)

Definition

$split

Divides a string into an array of substrings based on a delimiter. $split removes the delimiter and returns the resulting substrings as elements of an array. If the delimiter is not found in the string, $split returns the original string as the only element of an array.

$split has the following operator expression syntax:

{ $split: [ <string expression>, <delimiter> ] }

Field	Type	Description
string expression	string	The string to be split. string expression can be any valid expression as long as it resolves to a string. For more information on expressions, see Expression Operators.
delimiter	string	The delimiter to use when splitting the string expression. delimiter can be any valid expression as long as it resolves to a string.

Behavior

The $split operator returns an array. The <string expression> and <delimiter> inputs must both be strings. Otherwise, the operation fails with an error.

{ $split: [ "June-15-2013", "-" ] }

[ "June", "15", "2013" ]

{ $split: [ "banana split", "a" ] }

[ "b", "n", "n", " split" ]

{ $split: [ "Hello World", " " ] }

[ "Hello", "World" ]

{ $split: [ "astronomical", "astro" ] }

[ "", "nomical" ]

{ $split: [ "pea green boat", "owl" ] }

[ "pea green boat" ]

Example

A collection named deliveries contains the following documents:

db.deliveries.insertMany( [
   { _id: 1, city: "Berkeley, CA", qty: 648 },
   { _id: 2, city: "Bend, OR", qty: 491 },
   { _id: 3, city: "Kensington, CA", qty: 233 },
   { _id: 4, city: "Eugene, OR", qty: 842 },
   { _id: 5, city: "Reno, NV", qty: 655 },
   { _id: 6, city: "Portland, OR", qty: 408 },
   { _id: 7, city: "Sacramento, CA", qty: 574 }
] )

The goal of following aggregation operation is to find the total quantity of deliveries for each state and sort the list in descending order. It has five pipeline stages:

• The $project stage produces documents with two fields, qty (integer) and city_state (array). The $split operator creates an array of strings by splitting the city field, using a comma followed by a space (", ") as a delimiter.

• The $unwind stage creates a separate record for each element in the city_state field.

• The $match stage uses a regular expression to filter out the city documents, leaving only those containing a state.

• The $group stage groups all the states together and sums the qty field.

• The $sort stage sorts the results by total_qty in descending order.

db.deliveries.aggregate( [
  { $project: { city_state: { $split: ["$city", ", "] }, qty: 1 } },
  { $unwind: "$city_state" },
  { $match: { city_state: /[A-Z]{2}/ } },
  { $group: { _id: { state: "$city_state" }, total_qty: { $sum: "$qty" } } },
  { $sort: { total_qty: -1 } }
] )

The operation returns the following results:

[
   { _id: { state: "OR" }, total_qty: 1741 },
   { _id: { state: "CA" }, total_qty: 1455 },
   { _id: { state: "NV" }, total_qty: 655 }
]