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$subtract (aggregation)

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  • Definition
  • Behavior
  • Examples

Definition

$subtract

Subtracts two numbers to return the difference, or two dates to return the difference in milliseconds, or a date and a number in milliseconds to return the resulting date.

The $subtract expression has the following syntax:

{ $subtract: [ <expression1>, <expression2> ] }

The second argument is subtracted from the first argument.

The arguments can be any valid expression as long as they resolve to numbers and/or dates. To subtract a number from a date, the date must be the first argument. For more information on expressions, see Expression Operators.

Behavior

When input types are mixed, $subtract promotes the smaller input type to the larger of the two. A type is considered larger when it represents a wider range of values. The order of numeric types from smallest to largest is: integer → long → double → decimal

The larger of the input types also determines the result type unless the operation overflows and is beyond the range represented by that larger data type. In cases of overflow, $subtract promotes the result according to the following order:

  • If the larger input type is integer, the result type is promoted to long.

  • If the larger input type is long, the result type is promoted to double.

  • If the larger type is double or decimal, the overflow result is represented as + or - infinity. There is no type promotion of the result.

When mixing Date and non-integer operands, $subtract rounds the non-integer value to the nearest integer before performing the operation.

Examples

Consider a sales collection with the following documents:

db.sales.insertMany([
   { "_id" : 1, "item" : "abc", "price" : 10, "fee" : 2, "discount" : 5, "date" : ISODate("2014-03-01T08:00:00Z") },
   { "_id" : 2, "item" : "jkl", "price" : 20, "fee" : 1, "discount" : 2, "date" : ISODate("2014-03-01T09:00:00Z") }
])

Subtract Numbers

The following aggregation uses the $subtract expression to compute the total by subtracting the discount from the subtotal of price and fee.

db.sales.aggregate( [ { $project: { item: 1, total: { $subtract: [ { $add: [ "$price", "$fee" ] }, "$discount" ] } } } ] )

The operation returns the following results:

{ "_id" : 1, "item" : "abc", "total" : 7 }
{ "_id" : 2, "item" : "jkl", "total" : 19 }

Subtract Two Dates

The following aggregation uses the $subtract expression to subtract $date from the current date, using the system NOW and returns the difference in milliseconds:

db.sales.aggregate( [ { $project: { item: 1, dateDifference: { $subtract: [ "$$NOW", "$date" ] } } } ] )

Alternatively, you can use the Date() for the current date:s

db.sales.aggregate( [ { $project: { item: 1, dateDifference: { $subtract: [ new Date(), "$date" ] } } } ] )

Both operations return documents that resemble the following:

{ "_id" : 1, "item" : "abc", "dateDifference" : NumberLong("186136746187") }
{ "_id" : 2, "item" : "jkl", "dateDifference" : NumberLong("186133146187") }

Subtract Milliseconds from a Date

The following aggregation uses the $subtract expression to subtract 5 * 60 * 1000 milliseconds (5 minutes) from the "$date" field:

db.sales.aggregate( [ { $project: { item: 1, dateDifference: { $subtract: [ "$date", 5 * 60 * 1000 ] } } } ] )

The operation returns the following results:

{ "_id" : 1, "item" : "abc", "dateDifference" : ISODate("2014-03-01T07:55:00Z") }
{ "_id" : 2, "item" : "jkl", "dateDifference" : ISODate("2014-03-01T08:55:00Z") }

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