MongoDB Aggregation Operations with arrays.
Example
When you want to work with the data entries in arrays you first need to unwind the array. The unwind operation creates a document for each entry in the array. When you have lot's of documents with large arrays you will see an explosion in number of documents.
{ "_id" : 1, "item" : "myItem1", sizes: [ "S", "M", "L"] }
{ "_id" : 2, "item" : "myItem2", sizes: [ "XS", "M", "XL"] }
db.inventory.aggregate( [ { $unwind : "$sizes" }] )
An important notice is that when a document doesn't contain the array it will be lost. From mongo 3.2 and up there are is an unwind option "preserveNullAndEmptyArrays" added. This option makes sure the document is preserved when the array is missing.
{ "_id" : 1, "item" : "myItem1", sizes: [ "S", "M", "L"] }
{ "_id" : 2, "item" : "myItem2", sizes: [ "XS", "M", "XL"] }
{ "_id" : 3, "item" : "myItem3" }
db.inventory.aggregate( [ { $unwind : { path: "$sizes", includeArrayIndex: "arrayIndex" } }] )
