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Generate Custom Values for `_id`

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Overview

Specify a Primary Key Factory
Additional Information

This version of the documentation is archived and no longer supported. View the current documentation to learn how to upgrade your version of the MongoDB Node.js driver.

Overview

In this guide, you can learn how to use the MongoDB Node.js driver to generate your own _id values using the primary key factory.

The primary key factory allows you to create unique identifiers in your documents when you choose not to specify an _id during an insert operation. The default primary key factory generates ObjectId values.

Note

Upsert Operations

The driver doesn't use the primary key factory for upsert operations because it's unable to determine whether to apply the primary key factory. If you specified the primary key factory in an upsert operation and it performs an insert operation, the server autogenerates an ObjectId for that document.

If you want to use your specified primary key factory, perform a find operation, then an update or insert operation.

Specify a Primary Key Factory

To specify a primary key factory, apply the pkFactory option to your MongoClient instance.

The following code snippet applies the pkFactory option to generate _id values of type uuid:

const { UUID } = require('bson');
...
const client = new MongoClient(uri, {
  useUnifiedTopology: true,
  pkFactory: { createPk: () =>  new UUID().toBinary() }
});

Note

Data Consistency

If you insert a document with an _id field with a different type than the type specified by the primary key factory, then you will have inconsistent data.

For example, if you run the following insert operation on a primary key factory that generates uuid types, your _id values will contain both the uuid and string types:

collection.insertOne({ _id: "user1388", ... });

Additional Information

To learn more about the types, interfaces, and classes discussed in this section, see the following resources:

← Insert a Document Delete a Document →