Inserting multiple nested objects with MongoDB

Question

I'm very new to MongoDB so forgive me if this question isn't worded correctly. I know how to insert into the database, and I also know that I can have a nested object and know how to install that. I have:

Questions.insert({ Order:1, Question: "What type of property is it?", 
    Answers: { Order: 1, Answer: "House" }});

I hope from the above statement you can see that I'm aiming to try and insert multiple answers for this question (this may be where I'm going wrong, is this the right approach?). So looking at the above statement, I thought that I could insert multiple answers as such:

Questions.insert({ Order:1, Question: "What type of property is it?", 
    Answers: [{ Order: 1,    Answer: "House" }, 
             { Order: 2, Answer: "Flat" }, 
             { Order: 3, Answer: "Bungalow" }, 
             { Order: 4, Answer: "Maisonette }]
});

SyntaxError: Unexpected token ILLEGAL

What errors are you seeing? Hard to diagnose without specifics of the problem. — Alfie Hanssen
– Alfie Hanssen, Commented Aug 2, 2013 at 14:14
@AlfieHanssen It's an is this the right approach question not a why isn't this working question — ediblecode
– ediblecode, Commented Aug 2, 2013 at 14:17
Incidentally, the SyntaxError you're getting is an error from JavaScript, not from MongoDB -- it means the command you put together doesn't parse into a valid JavaScript command. MongoDB's error messages are formatted differently. Per @potatosalad, there's nothing wrong with your approach necessarily, you just missed a quote mark! — Jim Dagg
– Jim Dagg, Commented Aug 2, 2013 at 14:26

potatosalad · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-02 14:22:06Z

5

You are missing a " at the end of Maisonette which is where the error is coming from.

{ Order: 4, Answer: "Maisonette }]

Otherwise your query is on the right track for inserting embedded documents.

answered Aug 2, 2013 at 14:22

potatosalad

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1 Comment

Jim Dagg Over a year ago

Your answer more appropriately addresses the problem the OP is having than mine -- +1.

Jim Dagg · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-02 14:18:24Z

1

Your answers sub-document is kind of acting like an array. There are two possibilities you could use to store multiple answers in each question:

1) Just use an array:

Questions.insert({order : 1, 
    question : "What type of property is it?", 
    answers : [ "House", "Flat", "Bungalow", "Maisonette" ]
    });

2) The way MongoDB will sometimes internally store arrays is to simply use an ordinal as the key to each sub-document, like so:

Questions.insert({order : 1, 
    question : "What type of property is it?", 
    answers : {"1" : "House",
               "2" : "Flat",
               "3" : "Bungalow",
               "4" : "Maisonette"}
    });

answered Aug 2, 2013 at 14:18

Jim Dagg

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4 Comments

ediblecode Over a year ago

First one gave an error about unexpected token. The second one worked however so thank you!

Jim Dagg Over a year ago

That's because I forgot a quote around "Maisonette". Edited.

Sergey Gavruk Over a year ago

@JimDagg, the script of @danrhul is also correct except this missing quote "

Jim Dagg Over a year ago

True! I posted this answer before @darnhul updated with the error message he was getting.

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