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As a first step you define a domain class-specific repository interface. The interface must extend Repository and be typed to the domain class and an ID type. If you want to expose CRUD methods for that domain type, extend CrudRepository instead of Repository.

Fine-tuning repository definition

Typically, your repository interface will extend Repository, CrudRepository or PagingAndSortingRepository. Alternatively, if you do not want to extend Spring Data interfaces, you can also annotate your repository interface with @RepositoryDefinition. Extending CrudRepository exposes a complete set of methods to manipulate your entities. If you prefer to be selective about the methods being exposed, simply copy the ones you want to expose from CrudRepository into your domain repository.

	Note
	This allows you to define your own abstractions on top of the provided Spring Data Repositories functionality.

Example 3.3. Selectively exposing CRUD methods

@NoRepositoryBean
interface MyBaseRepository<T, ID extends Serializable> extends Repository<T, ID> {

  T findOne(ID id);

  T save(T entity);
}

interface UserRepository extends MyBaseRepository<User, Long> {

  User findByEmailAddress(EmailAddress emailAddress);
}

In this first step you defined a common base interface for all your domain repositories and exposed findOne(…) as well as save(…).These methods will be routed into the base repository implementation of the store of your choice provided by Spring Data ,e.g. in the case if JPA SimpleJpaRepository, because they are matching the method signatures in CrudRepository. So the UserRepository will now be able to save users, and find single ones by id, as well as triggering a query to find Users by their email address.

	Note
	Note, that the intermediate repository interface is annotated with @NoRepositoryBean. Make sure you add that annotation to all repository interfaces that Spring Data should not create instances for at runtime.

The repository proxy has two ways to derive a store-specific query from the method name. It can derive the query from the method name directly, or by using an manually defined query. Available options depend on the actual store. However, there's got to be an strategy that decides what actual query is created. Let's have a look at the available options.

public interface PersonRepository extends Repository<User, Long> {

  List<Person> findByEmailAddressAndLastname(EmailAddress emailAddress, String lastname);

  // Enables the distinct flag for the query
  List<Person> findDistinctPeopleByLastnameOrFirstname(String lastname, String firstname);
  List<Person> findPeopleDistinctByLastnameOrFirstname(String lastname, String firstname);

  // Enabling ignoring case for an individual property
  List<Person> findByLastnameIgnoreCase(String lastname);
  // Enabling ignoring case for all suitable properties
  List<Person> findByLastnameAndFirstnameAllIgnoreCase(String lastname, String firstname);

  // Enabling static ORDER BY for a query
  List<Person> findByLastnameOrderByFirstnameAsc(String lastname);
  List<Person> findByLastnameOrderByFirstnameDesc(String lastname);
}

List<Person> findByAddressZipCode(ZipCode zipCode);

List<Person> findByAddress_ZipCode(ZipCode zipCode);

Special parameter handling

To handle parameters in your query you simply define method parameters as already seen in the examples above. Besides that the infrastructure will recognize certain specific types like Pageable and Sort to apply pagination and sorting to your queries dynamically.

Example 3.5. Using Pageable and Sort in query methods

Page<User> findByLastname(String lastname, Pageable pageable);

List<User> findByLastname(String lastname, Sort sort);

List<User> findByLastname(String lastname, Pageable pageable);

The first method allows you to pass an org.springframework.data.domain.Pageable instance to the query method to dynamically add paging to your statically defined query. Sorting options are handled through the Pageable instance too. If you only need sorting, simply add an org.springframework.data.domain.Sort parameter to your method. As you also can see, simply returning a List is possible as well. In this case the additional metadata required to build the actual Page instance will not be created (which in turn means that the additional count query that would have been necessary not being issued) but rather simply restricts the query to look up only the given range of entities.

	Note
	To find out how many pages you get for a query entirely you have to trigger an additional count query. By default this query will be derived from the query you actually trigger.

In this section you create instances and bean definitions for the repository interfaces defined. One way to do so is using the Spring namespace that is shipped with each Spring Data module that supports the repository mechanism although we generally recommend to use the Java-Config style configuration.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans:beans xmlns:beans="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/data/jpa"
  xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/data/jpa
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/data/jpa/spring-jpa.xsd">

  <repositories base-package="com.acme.repositories" />

</beans:beans>

<repositories base-package="com.acme.repositories">
  <context:exclude-filter type="regex" expression=".*SomeRepository" />
</repositories>

JavaConfig

The repository infrastructure can also be triggered using a store-specific @Enable${store}Repositories annotation on a JavaConfig class. For an introduction into Java-based configuration of the Spring container, see the reference documentation.^[1]

A sample configuration to enable Spring Data repositories looks something like this.

Example 3.7. Sample annotation based repository configuration

@Configuration
@EnableJpaRepositories("com.acme.repositories")
class ApplicationConfiguration {

  @Bean
  public EntityManagerFactory entityManagerFactory() {
    // …
  }
}

	Note
	The sample uses the JPA-specific annotation, which you would change according to the store module you actually use. The same applies to the definition of the EntityManagerFactory bean. Consult the sections covering the store-specific configuration.

RepositoryFactorySupport factory = … // Instantiate factory here
UserRepository repository = factory.getRepository(UserRepository.class);

To enrich a repository with custom functionality you first define an interface and an implementation for the custom functionality. Use the repository interface you provided to extend the custom interface.

interface UserRepositoryCustom {

  public void someCustomMethod(User user);
}

Example 3.10. Implementation of custom repository functionality

class UserRepositoryImpl implements UserRepositoryCustom {

  public void someCustomMethod(User user) {
    // Your custom implementation
  }
}

	Note
	The implementation itself does not depend on Spring Data and can be a regular Spring bean. So you can use standard dependency injection behavior to inject references to other beans like a JdbTemplate, take part in aspects, and so on.

public interface UserRepository extends CrudRepository<User, Long>, UserRepositoryCustom {

  // Declare query methods here
}

<repositories base-package="com.acme.repository" />

<repositories base-package="com.acme.repository" repository-impl-postfix="FooBar" />

<repositories base-package="com.acme.repository" />

<beans:bean id="userRepositoryImpl" class="…">
  <!-- further configuration -->
</beans:bean>

The preceding approach is not feasible when you want to add a single method to all your repository interfaces.

Note

This section contains the documentation for the Spring Data web support as it is implemented as of Spring Data Commons in the 1.6 range. As it the newly introduced support changes quite a lot of things we kept the documentation of the former behavior in Section 3.4.3, “Legacy web support”. Also note that the JavaConfig support introduced in Spring Data Commons 1.6 requires Spring 3.2 due to some issues with JavaConfig and overridden methods in Spring 3.1.

Spring Data modules ships with a variety of web support if the module supports the repository programming model. The web related stuff requires Spring MVC JARs on the classpath, some of them even provide integration with Spring HATEOAS.

^[2]In general, the integration support is enabled by using the @EnableSpringDataWebSupport annotation in your JavaConfig configuration class.

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
@EnableSpringDataWebSupport
class WebConfiguration { }

The @EnableSpringDataWebSupport annotation registers a few components we will discuss in a bit. It will also detect Spring HATEOAS on the classpath and register integration components for it as well if present.

Alternatively, if you are using XML configuration, register either SpringDataWebSupport or HateoasAwareSpringDataWebSupport as Spring beans:

<bean class="org.springframework.data.web.config.SpringDataWebConfiguration" />

<!-- If you're using Spring HATEOAS as well register this one *instead* of the former -->
<bean class="org.springframework.data.web.config.HateoasAwareSpringDataWebConfiguration" />

Basic web support

The configuration setup shown above will register a few basic components:

• A DomainClassConverter to enable Spring MVC to resolve instances of repository managed domain classes from request parameters or path variables.

• HandlerMethodArgumentResolver implementations to let Spring MVC resolve Pageable and Sort instances from request parameters.

DomainClassConverter

The DomainClassConverter allows you to use domain types in your Spring MVC controller method signatures directly, so that you don't have to manually lookup the instances via the repository:

Example 3.20. A Spring MVC controller using domain types in method signatures

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/users")
public class UserController {

  @RequestMapping("/{id}")
  public String showUserForm(@PathVariable("id") User user, Model model) {

    model.addAttribute("user", user);
    return "userForm";
  }
}

As you can see the method receives a User instance directly and no further lookup is necessary. The instance can be resolved by letting Spring MVC convert the path variable into the id type of the domain class first and eventually access the instance through calling findOne(…) on the repository instance registered for the domain type.

	Note
	Currently the repository has to implement CrudRepository to be eligible to be discovered for conversion.

HandlerMethodArgumentResolvers for Pageable and Sort

The configuration snippet above also registers a PageableHandlerMethodArgumentResolver as well as an instance of SortHandlerMethodArgumentResolver. The registration enables Pageable and Sort being valid controller method arguments

Example 3.21. Using Pageable as controller method argument

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/users")
public class UserController {

  @Autowired UserRepository repository;

  @RequestMapping
  public String showUsers(Model model, Pageable pageable) {

    model.addAttribute("users", repository.findAll(pageable));
    return "users";
  }
}

This method signature will cause Spring MVC try to derive a Pageable instance from the request parameters using the following default configuration:

Table 3.1. Request parameters evaluated for Pageable instances

page	Page you want to retrieve.
size	Size of the page you want to retrieve.
sort	Properties that should be sorted by in the format property,property(,ASC|DESC). Default sort direction is ascending. Use multiple sort parameters if you want to switch directions, e.g. ?sort=firstname&sort=lastname,asc.

To customize this behavior extend either SpringDataWebConfiguration or the HATEOAS-enabled equivalent and override the pageableResolver() or sortResolver() methods and import your customized configuration file instead of using the @Enable-annotation.

In case you need multiple Pageables or Sorts to be resolved from the request (for multiple tables, for example) you can use Spring's @Qualifier annotation to distinguish one from another. The request parameters then have to be prefixed with ${qualifier}_. So for a method signature like this:

public String showUsers(Model model, 
      @Qualifier("foo") Pageable first,
      @Qualifier("bar") Pageable second) { … }

you have to populate foo_page and bar_page etc.

The default Pageable handed into the method is equivalent to a new PageRequest(0, 20) but can be customized using the @PageableDefaults annotation on the Pageable parameter.

@Controller 
class PersonController { 

  @Autowired PersonRepository repository; 

  @RequestMapping(value = "/persons", method = RequestMethod.GET) 
  HttpEntity<PagedResources<Person>> persons(Pageable pageable, 
    PagedResourcesAssembler assembler) { 

    Page<Person> persons = repository.findAll(pageable); 
    return new ResponseEntity<>(assembler.toResources(persons), HttpStatus.OK);
  }
}

{ "links" : [ { "rel" : "next", 
                "href" : "http://localhost:8080/persons?page=1&size=20 } 
  ], 
  "content" : [ 
     … // 20 Person instances rendered here
  ], 
  "pageMetadata" : { 
    "size" : 20, 
    "totalElements" : 30, 
    "totalPages" : 2, 
    "number" : 0
  } 
}

If you work with the Spring JDBC module, you probably are familiar with the support to populate a DataSource using SQL scripts. A similar abstraction is available on the repositories level, although it does not use SQL as the data definition language because it must be store-independent. Thus the populators support XML (through Spring's OXM abstraction) and JSON (through Jackson) to define data with which to populate the repositories.

Assume you have a file data.json with the following content:

[ { "_class" : "com.acme.Person",
 "firstname" : "Dave",
  "lastname" : "Matthews" },
  { "_class" : "com.acme.Person",
 "firstname" : "Carter",
  "lastname" : "Beauford" } ]

You can easily populate your repositories by using the populator elements of the repository namespace provided in Spring Data Commons. To populate the preceding data to your PersonRepository , do the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xmlns:repository="http://www.springframework.org/schema/data/repository"
  xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/data/repository
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/data/repository/spring-repository.xsd">

  <repository:jackson-populator locations="classpath:data.json" />

</beans>

This declaration causes the data.json file to be read and deserialized via a Jackson ObjectMapper. The type to which the JSON object will be unmarshalled to will be determined by inspecting the _class attribute of the JSON document. The infrastructure will eventually select the appropriate repository to handle the object just deserialized.

To rather use XML to define the data the repositories shall be populated with, you can use the unmarshaller-populator element. You configure it to use one of the XML marshaller options Spring OXM provides you with. See the Spring reference documentation for details.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xmlns:repository="http://www.springframework.org/schema/data/repository"
  xmlns:oxm="http://www.springframework.org/schema/oxm"
  xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/data/repository
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/data/repository/spring-repository.xsd
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/oxm
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/oxm/spring-oxm.xsd">

  <repository:unmarshaller-populator locations="classpath:data.json" unmarshaller-ref="unmarshaller" />

  <oxm:jaxb2-marshaller contextPath="com.acme" />

</beans>

An example of using Java based bean metadata to register an instance of a com.mongodb.Mongo is shown below

@Configuration
public class AppConfig {

  /*
   * Use the standard Mongo driver API to create a com.mongodb.Mongo instance.
   */
   public @Bean Mongo mongo() throws UnknownHostException {
       return new Mongo("localhost");
   }
}      

This approach allows you to use the standard com.mongodb.Mongo API that you may already be used to using but also pollutes the code with the UnknownHostException checked exception. The use of the checked exception is not desirable as Java based bean metadata uses methods as a means to set object dependencies, making the calling code cluttered.

An alternative is to register an instance of com.mongodb.Mongo instance with the container using Spring's MongoFactoryBean. As compared to instantiating a com.mongodb.Mongo instance directly, the FactoryBean approach does not throw a checked exception and has the added advantage of also providing the container with an ExceptionTranslator implementation that translates MongoDB exceptions to exceptions in Spring's portable DataAccessException hierarchy for data access classes annoated with the @Repository annotation. This hierarchy and use of @Repository is described in Spring's DAO support features.

An example of a Java based bean metadata that supports exception translation on @Repository annotated classes is shown below:

@Configuration
public class AppConfig {

    /*
     * Factory bean that creates the com.mongodb.Mongo instance
     */
     public @Bean MongoFactoryBean mongo() {
          MongoFactoryBean mongo = new MongoFactoryBean();
          mongo.setHost("localhost");
          return mongo;
     }
}

While you can use Spring's traditional <beans/> XML namespace to register an instance of com.mongodb.Mongo with the container, the XML can be quite verbose as it is general purpose. XML namespaces are a better alternative to configuring commonly used objects such as the Mongo instance. The mongo namespace alows you to create a Mongo instance server location, replica-sets, and options.

To use the Mongo namespace elements you will need to reference the Mongo schema:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
          xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
          xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
          xmlns:mongo="http://www.springframework.org/schema/data/mongo"
          xsi:schemaLocation=
          "http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
          http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd
          http://www.springframework.org/schema/data/mongo
          http://www.springframework.org/schema/data/mongo/spring-mongo-1.0.xsd
          http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
          http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd">

    <!-- Default bean name is 'mongo' -->
    <mongo:mongo host="localhost" port="27017"/>

</beans>
        

A more advanced configuration with MongoOptions is shown below (note these are not recommended values)

<beans>

  <mongo:mongo host="localhost" port="27017">
    <mongo:options connections-per-host="8"
                   threads-allowed-to-block-for-connection-multiplier="4"
                   connect-timeout="1000"
                   max-wait-time="1500}"
                   auto-connect-retry="true"
                   socket-keep-alive="true"
                   socket-timeout="1500"
                   slave-ok="true"
                   write-number="1"
                   write-timeout="0"
                   write-fsync="true"/>
  </mongo:mongo/>

</beans>
        

A configuration using replica sets is shown below.

<mongo:mongo id="replicaSetMongo" replica-set="127.0.0.1:27017,localhost:27018"/>	   

While com.mongodb.Mongo is the entry point to the MongoDB driver API, connecting to a specific MongoDB database instance requires additional information such as the database name and an optional username and password. With that information you can obtain a com.mongodb.DB object and access all the functionality of a specific MongoDB database instance. Spring provides the org.springframework.data.mongodb.core.MongoDbFactory interface shown below to bootstrap connectivity to the database.

public interface MongoDbFactory {

  DB getDb() throws DataAccessException;

  DB getDb(String dbName) throws DataAccessException;
}

The following sections show how you can use the container with either Java or the XML based metadata to configure an instance of the MongoDbFactory interface. In turn, you can use the MongoDbFactory instance to configure MongoTemplate.

The class org.springframework.data.mongodb.core.SimpleMongoDbFactory provides implements the MongoDbFactory interface and is created with a standard com.mongodb.Mongo instance, the database name and an optional org.springframework.data.authentication.UserCredentials constructor argument.

Instead of using the IoC container to create an instance of MongoTemplate, you can just use them in standard Java code as shown below.

public class MongoApp {

  private static final Log log = LogFactory.getLog(MongoApp.class);

  public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

    MongoOperations mongoOps = new MongoTemplate(new SimpleMongoDbFactory(new Mongo(), "database"));

    mongoOps.insert(new Person("Joe", 34));

    log.info(mongoOps.findOne(new Query(where("name").is("Joe")), Person.class));

    mongoOps.dropCollection("person");
  }
}

The code in bold highlights the use of SimpleMongoDbFactory and is the only difference between the listing shown in the getting started section.

To register a MongoDbFactory instance with the container, you write code much like what was highlighted in the previous code listing. A simple example is shown below

@Configuration
public class MongoConfiguration {
  
  public @Bean MongoDbFactory mongoDbFactory() throws Exception {
    return new SimpleMongoDbFactory(new Mongo(), "database");
  }
}

To define the username and password create an instance of org.springframework.data.authentication.UserCredentials and pass it into the constructor as shown below. This listing also shows using MongoDbFactory register an instance of MongoTemplate with the container.

@Configuration
public class MongoConfiguration {
  
  public @Bean MongoDbFactory mongoDbFactory() throws Exception {
    UserCredentials userCredentials = new UserCredentials("joe", "secret");
    return new SimpleMongoDbFactory(new Mongo(), "database", userCredentials);
  }

  public @Bean MongoTemplate mongoTemplate() throws Exception {
    return new MongoTemplate(mongoDbFactory());
  }
}

The mongo namespace provides a convient way to create a SimpleMongoDbFactory as compared to using the<beans/> namespace. Simple usage is shown below

<mongo:db-factory dbname="database">

In the above example a com.mongodb.Mongo instance is created using the default host and port number. The SimpleMongoDbFactory registered with the container is identified by the id 'mongoDbFactory' unless a value for the id attribute is specified.

You can also provide the host and port for the underlying com.mongodb.Mongo instance as shown below, in addition to username and password for the database.

<mongo:db-factory id="anotherMongoDbFactory"
                  host="localhost"
                  port="27017"
                  dbname="database"
                  username="joe"
                  password="secret"/>

If you need to configure additional options on the com.mongodb.Mongo instance that is used to create a SimpleMongoDbFactory you can refer to an existing bean using the mongo-ref attribute as shown below. To show another common usage pattern, this listing show the use of a property placeholder to parameterise the configuration and creating MongoTemplate.

<context:property-placeholder location="classpath:/com/myapp/mongodb/config/mongo.properties"/>

<mongo:mongo host="${mongo.host}" port="${mongo.port}">
  <mongo:options
     connections-per-host="${mongo.connectionsPerHost}"
     threads-allowed-to-block-for-connection-multiplier="${mongo.threadsAllowedToBlockForConnectionMultiplier}"
     connect-timeout="${mongo.connectTimeout}"
     max-wait-time="${mongo.maxWaitTime}"
     auto-connect-retry="${mongo.autoConnectRetry}"
     socket-keep-alive="${mongo.socketKeepAlive}"
     socket-timeout="${mongo.socketTimeout}"
     slave-ok="${mongo.slaveOk}"
     write-number="1"
     write-timeout="0"
     write-fsync="true"/>
</mongo:mongo>

<mongo:db-factory dbname="database" mongo-ref="mongo"/>

<bean id="anotherMongoTemplate" class="org.springframework.data.mongodb.core.MongoTemplate">
  <constructor-arg name="mongoDbFactory" ref="mongoDbFactory"/>
</bean>

You can use Java to create and register an instance of MongoTemplate as shown below.

@Configuration
public class AppConfig {

    public @Bean Mongo mongo() throws Exception {
        return new Mongo("localhost");
    }

    public @Bean MongoTemplate mongoTemplate() throws Exception {
        return new MongoTemplate(mongo(), "mydatabase");
    }
}
        

There are several overloaded constructors of MongoTemplate. These are

You can also configure a MongoTemplate using Spring's XML <beans/> schema.

  <mongo:mongo host="localhost" port="27017"/>
  
  <bean id="mongoTemplate" class="org.springframework.data.mongodb.core.MongoTemplate">
    <constructor-arg ref="mongo"/>
    <constructor-arg name="databaseName" value="geospatial"/>
  </bean>

Other optional properties that you might like to set when creating a MongoTemplate are the default WriteResultCheckingPolicy, WriteConcern, and ReadPreference.

	Note
	The preferred way to reference the operations on MongoTemplate instance is via its interface MongoOperations.

public interface WriteConcernResolver {
  WriteConcern resolve(MongoAction action);
}

private class MyAppWriteConcernResolver implements WriteConcernResolver {

  public WriteConcern resolve(MongoAction action) {
    if (action.getEntityClass().getSimpleName().contains("Audit")) {
      return WriteConcern.NONE;
    } else if (action.getEntityClass().getSimpleName().contains("Metadata")) {
      return WriteConcern.JOURNAL_SAFE;
    }
    return action.getDefaultWriteConcern();
  }
}

MongoDB requires that you have an '_id' field for all documents. If you don't provide one the driver will assign a ObjectId with a generated value. When using the MongoMappingConverter there are certain rules that govern how properties from the Java class is mapped to this '_id' field.

The following outlines what property will be mapped to the '_id' document field:

The following outlines what type conversion, if any, will be done on the property mapped to the _id document field when using the MappingMongoConverter, the default for MongoTemplate.

If no field or property specified above is present in the Java class then an implicit '_id' file will be generated by the driver but not mapped to a property or field of the Java class.

When querying and updating MongoTemplate will use the converter to handle conversions of the Query and Update objects that correspond to the above rules for saving documents so field names and types used in your queries will be able to match what is in your domain classes.

As MongoDB collections can contain documents that represent instances of a variety of types. A great example here is if you store a hierarchy of classes or simply have a class with a property of type Object. In the latter case the values held inside that property have to be read in correctly when retrieving the object. Thus we need a mechanism to store type information alongside the actual document.

To achieve that the MappingMongoConverter uses a MongoTypeMapper abstraction with DefaultMongoTypeMapper as it's main implementation. It's default behaviour is storing the fully qualified classname under _class inside the document for the top-level document as well as for every value if it's a complex type and a subtype of the property type declared.

public class Sample {
  Contact value;
}

public abstract class Contact { … }

public class Person extends Contact { … }

Sample sample = new Sample();
sample.value = new Person();

mongoTemplate.save(sample);

{ "_class" : "com.acme.Sample",
  "value" : { "_class" : "com.acme.Person" }
}

As you can see we store the type information for the actual root class persistent as well as for the nested type as it is complex and a subtype of Contact. So if you're now using mongoTemplate.findAll(Object.class, "sample") we are able to find out that the document stored shall be a Sample instance. We are also able to find out that the value property shall be a Person actually.

@TypeAlias("pers")
class Person {

}

class CustomMongoTypeMapper extends DefaultMongoTypeMapper {
  //implement custom type mapping here
}

@Configuration
class SampleMongoConfiguration extends AbstractMongoConfiguration {

    @Override
    protected String getDatabaseName() {
        return "database";
    }

    @Override
    public Mongo mongo() throws Exception {
        return new Mongo();
    }

    @Bean
    @Override
    public MappingMongoConverter mappingMongoConverter() throws Exception {
        MappingMongoConverter mmc = super.mappingMongoConverter();
        mmc.setTypeMapper(customTypeMapper());
        return mmc;
    }

    @Bean
    public MongoTypeMapper customTypeMapper() {
        return new CustomMongoTypeMapper();
    }
}

<mongo:mapping-converter type-mapper-ref="customMongoTypeMapper"/>

<bean name="customMongoTypeMapper" class="com.bubu.mongo.CustomMongoTypeMapper"/>

There are several convenient methods on MongoTemplate for saving and inserting your objects. To have more fine grained control over the conversion process you can register Spring converters with the MappingMongoConverter, for example Converter<Person, DBObject> and Converter<DBObject, Person>.

	Note
	The difference between insert and save operations is that a save operation will perform an insert if the object is not already present.

The simple case of using the save operation is to save a POJO. In this case the collection name will be determined by name (not fully qualfied) of the class. You may also call the save operation with a specific collection name. The collection to store the object can be overriden using mapping metadata.

When inserting or saving, if the Id property is not set, the assumption is that its value will be auto-generated by the database. As such, for auto-generation of an ObjectId to succeed the type of the Id property/field in your class must be either a String, ObjectId, or BigInteger.

Here is a basic example of using the save operation and retrieving its contents.

import static org.springframework.data.mongodb.core.query.Criteria.where;
import static org.springframework.data.mongodb.core.query.Criteria.query;

…

Person p = new Person("Bob", 33);
mongoTemplate.insert(p);

Person qp = mongoTemplate.findOne(query(where("age").is(33)), Person.class);        

The insert/save operations available to you are listed below.

A similar set of insert operations is listed below

For updates we can elect to update the first document found using MongoOperation's method updateFirst or we can update all documents that were found to match the query using the method updateMulti. Here is an example of an update of all SAVINGS accounts where we are adding a one time $50.00 bonus to the balance using the $inc operator.

import static org.springframework.data.mongodb.core.query.Criteria.where;
import static org.springframework.data.mongodb.core.query.Query;
import static org.springframework.data.mongodb.core.query.Update;

          ...

  WriteResult wr = mongoTemplate.updateMulti(new Query(where("accounts.accountType").is(Account.Type.SAVINGS)),
                                                            new Update().inc("accounts.$.balance", 50.00),
                                                            Account.class);
        

In addition to the Query discussed above we provide the update definition using an Update object. The Update class has methods that match the update modifiers available for MongoDB.

As you can see most methods return the Update object to provide a fluent style for the API.

Related to performing an updateFirst operations, you can also perform an upsert operation which will perform an insert if no document is found that matches the query. The document that is inserted is a combination of the query document and the update document. Here is an example

template.upsert(query(where("ssn").is(1111).and("firstName").is("Joe").and("Fraizer").is("Update")), update("address", addr), Person.class);

The findAndModify(…) method on DBCollection can update a document and return either the old or newly updated document in a single operation. MongoTemplate provides a findAndModify method that takes Query and Update classes and converts from DBObject to your POJOs. Here are the methods

<T> T findAndModify(Query query, Update update, Class<T> entityClass);

<T> T findAndModify(Query query, Update update, Class<T> entityClass, String collectionName);

<T> T findAndModify(Query query, Update update, FindAndModifyOptions options, Class<T> entityClass);

<T> T findAndModify(Query query, Update update, FindAndModifyOptions options, Class<T> entityClass, String collectionName);

As an example usage, we will insert of few Person objects into the container and perform a simple findAndUpdate operation

mongoTemplate.insert(new Person("Tom", 21));
mongoTemplate.insert(new Person("Dick", 22));
mongoTemplate.insert(new Person("Harry", 23));

Query query = new Query(Criteria.where("firstName").is("Harry"));
Update update = new Update().inc("age", 1);
Person p = mongoTemplate.findAndModify(query, update, Person.class); // return's old person object

assertThat(p.getFirstName(), is("Harry"));
assertThat(p.getAge(), is(23));
p = mongoTemplate.findOne(query, Person.class);
assertThat(p.getAge(), is(24));


// Now return the newly updated document when updating
p = template.findAndModify(query, update, new FindAndModifyOptions().returnNew(true), Person.class);
assertThat(p.getAge(), is(25));

The FindAndModifyOptions lets you set the options of returnNew, upsert, and remove. An example extending off the previous code snippit is shown below

Query query2 = new Query(Criteria.where("firstName").is("Mary"));
p = mongoTemplate.findAndModify(query2, update, new FindAndModifyOptions().returnNew(true).upsert(true), Person.class);
assertThat(p.getFirstName(), is("Mary"));
assertThat(p.getAge(), is(1));

You can use several overloaded methods to remove an object from the database.

We saw how to retrieve a single document using the findOne and findById methods on MongoTemplate in previous sections which return a single domain object. We can also query for a collection of documents to be returned as a list of domain objects. Assuming that we have a number of Person objects with name and age stored as documents in a collection and that each person has an embedded account document with a balance. We can now run a query using the following code.

import static org.springframework.data.mongodb.core.query.Criteria.where;
import static org.springframework.data.mongodb.core.query.Query.query;

…

List<Person> result = mongoTemplate.find(query(where("age").lt(50)
                                                .and("accounts.balance").gt(1000.00d)), Person.class);        

All find methods take a Query object as a parameter. This object defines the criteria and options used to perform the query. The criteria is specified using a Criteria object that has a static factory method named where used to instantiate a new Criteria object. We recommend using a static import for org.springframework.data.mongodb.core.query.Criteria.where and Query.query to make the query more readable.

This query should return a list of Person objects that meet the specified criteria. The Criteria class has the following methods that correspond to the operators provided in MongoDB.

As you can see most methods return the Criteria object to provide a fluent style for the API.

There are also methods on the Criteria class for geospatial queries. Here is a listing but look at the section on GeoSpatial Queries to see them in action.

The Query class has some additional methods used to provide options for the query.

The query methods need to specify the target type T that will be returned and they are also overloaded with an explicit collection name for queries that should operate on a collection other than the one indicated by the return type.

MongoDB supports GeoSpatial queries through the use of operators such as $near, $within, and $nearSphere. Methods specific to geospatial queries are available on the Criteria class. There are also a few shape classes, Box, Circle, and Point that are used in conjunction with geospatial related Criteria methods.

To understand how to perform GeoSpatial queries we will use the following Venue class taken from the integration tests.which relies on using the rich MappingMongoConverter.

@Document(collection="newyork")
public class Venue {
    
  @Id
  private String id;
  private String name;
  private double[] location;
  
  @PersistenceConstructor
  Venue(String name, double[] location) {
    super();
    this.name = name;
    this.location = location;    
  }
  
  public Venue(String name, double x, double y) {
    super();
    this.name = name;
    this.location = new double[] { x, y };    
  }

  public String getName() {
    return name;
  }

  public double[] getLocation() {
    return location;
  }

  @Override
  public String toString() {
    return "Venue [id=" + id + ", name=" + name + ", location="
        + Arrays.toString(location) + "]";
  } 
}

To find locations within a Circle, the following query can be used.

Circle circle = new Circle(-73.99171, 40.738868, 0.01);
List<Venue> venues = 
    template.find(new Query(Criteria.where("location").withinCenter(circle)), Venue.class);

To find venues within a Circle using spherical coordinates the following query can be used

Circle circle = new Circle(-73.99171, 40.738868, 0.003712240453784);
List<Venue> venues = 
    template.find(new Query(Criteria.where("location").withinCenterSphere(circle)), Venue.class);

To find venues within a Box the following query can be used

//lower-left then upper-right
Box box = new Box(new Point(-73.99756, 40.73083), new Point(-73.988135, 40.741404));  
List<Venue> venues = 
    template.find(new Query(Criteria.where("location").withinBox(box)), Venue.class);

To find venues near a Point, the following query can be used

Point point = new Point(-73.99171, 40.738868);
List<Venue> venues = 
    template.find(new Query(Criteria.where("location").near(point).maxDistance(0.01)), Venue.class);

To find venues near a Point using spherical coordines the following query can be used

Point point = new Point(-73.99171, 40.738868);
List<Venue> venues = 
    template.find(new Query(
        Criteria.where("location").nearSphere(point).maxDistance(0.003712240453784)), 
        Venue.class);

Point location = new Point(-73.99171, 40.738868);
NearQuery query = NearQuery.near(location).maxDistance(new Distance(10, Metrics.MILES));

GeoResults<Restaurant> = operations.geoNear(query, Restaurant.class);

To understand how to perform Map-Reduce operations an example from the book 'MongoDB - The definitive guide' is used. In this example we will create three documents that have the values [a,b], [b,c], and [c,d] respectfully. The values in each document are associated with the key 'x' as shown below. For this example assume these documents are in the collection named "jmr1".

{ "_id" : ObjectId("4e5ff893c0277826074ec533"), "x" : [ "a", "b" ] }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("4e5ff893c0277826074ec534"), "x" : [ "b", "c" ] }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("4e5ff893c0277826074ec535"), "x" : [ "c", "d" ] }

A map function that will count the occurance of each letter in the array for each document is shown below

function () {
    for (var i = 0; i < this.x.length; i++) {
        emit(this.x[i], 1);
    }
}

The reduce function that will sum up the occurance of each letter across all the documents is shown below

function (key, values) {
    var sum = 0;
    for (var i = 0; i < values.length; i++)
        sum += values[i];
    return sum;
}

Executing this will result in a collection as shown below.

{ "_id" : "a", "value" : 1 }
{ "_id" : "b", "value" : 2 }
{ "_id" : "c", "value" : 2 }
{ "_id" : "d", "value" : 1 }

Assuming that the map and reduce functions are located in map.js and reduce.js and bundled in your jar so they are available on the classpath, you can execute a map-reduce operation and obtain the results as shown below

MapReduceResults<ValueObject> results = mongoOperations.mapReduce("jmr1", "classpath:map.js", "classpath:reduce.js", ValueObject.class);
for (ValueObject valueObject : results) {
  System.out.println(valueObject);
}

The output of the above code is

ValueObject [id=a, value=1.0]
ValueObject [id=b, value=2.0]
ValueObject [id=c, value=2.0]
ValueObject [id=d, value=1.0]

The MapReduceResults class implements Iterable and provides access to the raw output, as well as timing and count statistics. The ValueObject class is simply

public class ValueObject {

  private String id;
  private float value;

  public String getId() {
    return id;
  }

  public float getValue() {
    return value;
  }

  public void setValue(float value) {
    this.value = value;
  }

  @Override
  public String toString() {
    return "ValueObject [id=" + id + ", value=" + value + "]";
  }
}

By default the output type of INLINE is used so you don't have to specify an output collection. To specify additional map-reduce options use an overloaded method that takes an additional MapReduceOptions argument. The class MapReduceOptions has a fluent API so adding additional options can be done in a very compact syntax. Here an example that sets the output collection to "jmr1_out". Note that setting only the output collection assumes a default output type of REPLACE.

MapReduceResults<ValueObject> results = mongoOperations.mapReduce("jmr1", "classpath:map.js", "classpath:reduce.js", 
                                                                     new MapReduceOptions().outputCollection("jmr1_out"), ValueObject.class);

There is also a static import import static org.springframework.data.mongodb.core.mapreduce.MapReduceOptions.options; that can be used to make the syntax slightly more compact

MapReduceResults<ValueObject> results = mongoOperations.mapReduce("jmr1", "classpath:map.js", "classpath:reduce.js", 
                                                                     options().outputCollection("jmr1_out"), ValueObject.class);

You can also specify a query to reduce the set of data that will be used to feed into the map-reduce operation. This will remove the document that contains [a,b] from consideration for map-reduce operations.

Query query = new Query(where("x").ne(new String[] { "a", "b" }));
MapReduceResults<ValueObject> results = mongoOperations.mapReduce(query, "jmr1", "classpath:map.js", "classpath:reduce.js", 
                                                                     options().outputCollection("jmr1_out"), ValueObject.class);

Note that you can specify additional limit and sort values as well on the query but not skip values.

In order to understand how group operations work the following example is used, which is somewhat artificial. For a more realistic example consult the book 'MongoDB - The definitive guide'. A collection named "group_test_collection" created with the following rows.

{ "_id" : ObjectId("4ec1d25d41421e2015da64f1"), "x" : 1 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("4ec1d25d41421e2015da64f2"), "x" : 1 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("4ec1d25d41421e2015da64f3"), "x" : 2 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("4ec1d25d41421e2015da64f4"), "x" : 3 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("4ec1d25d41421e2015da64f5"), "x" : 3 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("4ec1d25d41421e2015da64f6"), "x" : 3 }

We would like to group by the only field in each row, the 'x' field and aggregate the number of times each specific value of 'x' occurs. To do this we need to create an initial document that contains our count variable and also a reduce function which will increment it each time it is encountered. The Java code to execute the group operation is shown below

GroupByResults<XObject> results = mongoTemplate.group("group_test_collection", 
                                                      GroupBy.key("x").initialDocument("{ count: 0 }").reduceFunction("function(doc, prev) { prev.count += 1 }"), 
                                                      XObject.class);

The first argument is the name of the collection to run the group operation over, the second is a fluent API that specifies properties of the group operation via a GroupBy class. In this example we are using just the intialDocument and reduceFunction methods. You can also specify a key-function, as well as a finalizer as part of the fluent API. If you have multiple keys to group by, you can pass in a comma separated list of keys.

The raw results of the group operation is a JSON document that looks like this

{ 
  "retval" : [ { "x" : 1.0 , "count" : 2.0} , 
               { "x" : 2.0 , "count" : 1.0} , 
               { "x" : 3.0 , "count" : 3.0} ] , 
  "count" : 6.0 , 
  "keys" : 3 , 
  "ok" : 1.0
}

The document under the "retval" field is mapped onto the third argument in the group method, in this case XObject which is shown below.

public class XObject {

  private float x;

  private float count;


  public float getX() {
    return x;
  }

  public void setX(float x) {
    this.x = x;
  }

  public float getCount() {
    return count;
  }

  public void setCount(float count) {
    this.count = count;
  }

  @Override
  public String toString() {
    return "XObject [x=" + x + " count = " + count + "]";
  }
}

You can also obtain the raw result as a DbObject by calling the method getRawResults on the GroupByResults class.

There is an additional method overload of the group method on MongoOperations which lets you specify a Criteria object for selecting a subset of the rows. An example which uses a Criteria object, with some syntax sugar using static imports, as well as referencing a key-function and reduce function javascript files via a Spring Resource string is shown below.

import static org.springframework.data.mongodb.core.mapreduce.GroupBy.keyFunction;
import static org.springframework.data.mongodb.core.query.Criteria.where;

GroupByResults<XObject> results = mongoTemplate.group(where("x").gt(0), 
                                        "group_test_collection", 
                                        keyFunction("classpath:keyFunction.js").initialDocument("{ count: 0 }").reduceFunction("classpath:groupReduce.js"), XObject.class);

The Aggregation Framework support in Spring Data MongoDB is based on the following key abstractions Aggregation, AggregationOperation and AggregationResults.

The canonical example for using the Spring Data MongoDB support for the MongoDB Aggregation Framework looks as follows:

import static org.springframework.data.mongodb.core.aggregation.Aggregation.*;

Aggregation agg = newAggregation(
    pipelineOP1(),
    pipelineOP2(),
    pipelineOPn()
);

AggregationResults<OutputType> results = mongoTemplate.aggregate(agg, "INPUT_COLLECTION_NAME", OutputType.class);
List<OutputType> mappedResult = results.getMappedResults();

Note that if you provide an input class as the first parameter to the newAggregation method the MongoTemplate will derive the name of the input collection from this class. Otherwise if you don't not specify an input class you must provide the name of the input collection explicitly. If an input-class and an input-collection is provided the latter takes precedence.

The MongoDB Aggregation Framework provides the following types of Aggregation Operations:

At the time of this writing we provide support for the following Aggregation Operations in Spring Data MongoDB.

Note that the aggregation operations not listed here are currently not supported by Spring Data MongoDB. Comparison aggregation operators are expressed as Criteria expressions.

*) The operation is mapped or added by Spring Data MongoDB.

Projection expressions are used to define the fields that are the outcome of a particular aggregation step. Projection expressions can be defined via the project method of the Aggregate class.

project("name", "netPrice") // will generate {$project: {name: 1, netPrice: 1}}
project().and("foo").as("bar") // will generate {$project: {bar: $foo}}
project("a","b").and("foo").as("bar") // will generate {$project: {a: 1, b: 1, bar: $foo}}

Note that further details regarding the projection expressions can be found in the corresponding section of the MongoDB Aggregation Framework reference documentation.

1 + (q + 1) / (q - 1)

{ "$add" : [ 1, {
    "$divide" : [ { 
        "$add":["$q", 1]}, {
        "$subtract":[ "$q", 1]}
    ]
}]}

The following examples demonstrate the usage patterns for the MongoDB Aggregation Framework with Spring Data MongoDB.

class TagCount {
 String tag;
 int n;
}

import static org.springframework.data.mongodb.core.aggregation.Aggregation.*;

Aggregation agg = newAggregation(
    project("tags"),
    unwind("tags"),
    group("tags").count().as("n"),
    project("n").and("tag").previousOperation(),
    sort(DESC, "n") 
);

AggregationResults<TagCount> results = mongoTemplate.aggregate(agg, "tags", TagCount.class);
List<TagCount> tagCount = results.getMappedResults();

Note that the input collection is explicitly specified as the "tags" parameter to the aggregate Method. If the name of the input collection is not specified explicitly, it is derived from the input-class passed as first parameter to the newAggreation Method.

class ZipInfo {
   String id;
   String city;
   String state;
   @Field("pop") int population;
   @Field("loc") double[] location;
}

class City {
   String name;
   int population;
}

class ZipInfoStats {
   String id;
   String state;
   City biggestCity;
   City smallestCity;
}

import static org.springframework.data.mongodb.core.aggregation.Aggregation.*;

TypedAggregation<ZipInfo> aggregation = newAggregation(ZipInfo.class,
    group("state", "city")
       .sum("population").as("pop"),
    sort(ASC, "pop", "state", "city"),
    group("state")
       .last("city").as("biggestCity")
       .last("pop").as("biggestPop")
       .first("city").as("smallestCity")
       .first("pop").as("smallestPop"),
    project()
       .and("state").previousOperation()
       .and("biggestCity")
          .nested(bind("name", "biggestCity").and("population", "biggestPop"))
       .and("smallestCity")
          .nested(bind("name", "smallestCity").and("population", "smallestPop")),
    sort(ASC, "state")
);

AggregationResults<ZipInfoStats> result = mongoTemplate.aggregate(aggregation, ZipInfoStats.class);
ZipInfoStats firstZipInfoStats = result.getMappedResults().get(0);

Note that we derive the name of the input-collection from the ZipInfo-class passed as first parameter to the newAggregation-Method.

class StateStats {
   @Id String id;
   String state;
   @Field("totalPop") int totalPopulation;
}

import static org.springframework.data.mongodb.core.aggregation.Aggregation.*;

TypedAggregation<ZipInfo> agg = newAggregation(ZipInfo.class,
    group("state").sum("population").as("totalPop"),
    sort(ASC, previousOperation(), "totalPop"),
    match(where("totalPop").gte(10 * 1000 * 1000))
);

AggregationResults<StateStats> result = mongoTemplate.aggregate(agg, StateStats.class);
List<StateStats> stateStatsList = result.getMappedResults();

Note that we derive the name of the input-collection from the ZipInfo-class passed as first parameter to the newAggregation-Method.

class Product {
    String id;
    String name;
    double netPrice;
    int spaceUnits;
}

import static org.springframework.data.mongodb.core.aggregation.Aggregation.*;

TypedAggregation<Product> agg = newAggregation(Product.class,
    project("name", "netPrice")
        .and("netPrice").plus(1).as("netPricePlus1")
        .and("netPrice").minus(1).as("netPriceMinus1")
        .and("netPrice").multiply(1.19).as("grossPrice")
        .and("netPrice").divide(2).as("netPriceDiv2")
        .and("spaceUnits").mod(2).as("spaceUnitsMod2")
);

AggregationResults<DBObject> result = mongoTemplate.aggregate(agg, DBObject.class);
List<DBObject> resultList = result.getMappedResults();

Note that we derive the name of the input-collection from the Product-class passed as first parameter to the newAggregation-Method.

class Product {
    String id;
    String name;
    double netPrice;
    int spaceUnits;
}

import static org.springframework.data.mongodb.core.aggregation.Aggregation.*;

TypedAggregation<Product> agg = newAggregation(Product.class,
    project("name", "netPrice")
        .andExpression("netPrice + 1").as("netPricePlus1")
        .andExpression("netPrice - 1").as("netPriceMinus1")
        .andExpression("netPrice / 2").as("netPriceDiv2")
        .andExpression("netPrice * 1.19").as("grossPrice")
        .andExpression("spaceUnits % 2").as("spaceUnitsMod2")
        .andExpression("(netPrice * 0.8  + 1.2) * 1.19").as("grossPriceIncludingDiscountAndCharge")

);

AggregationResults<DBObject> result = mongoTemplate.aggregate(agg, DBObject.class);
List<DBObject> resultList = result.getMappedResults();

class Product {
    String id;
    String name;
    double netPrice;
    int spaceUnits;
}

import static org.springframework.data.mongodb.core.aggregation.Aggregation.*;

double shippingCosts = 1.2;

TypedAggregation<Product> agg = newAggregation(Product.class,
    project("name", "netPrice")
        .andExpression("(netPrice * (1-discountRate)  + [0]) * (1+taxRate)", shippingCosts).as("salesPrice")
);

AggregationResults<DBObject> result = mongoTemplate.aggregate(agg, DBObject.class);
List<DBObject> resultList = result.getMappedResults();

Note that we can also refer to other fields of the document within the SpEL expression.

An example implementation of the Converter that converts from a Person object to a com.mongodb.DBObject is shown below

import org.springframework.core.convert.converter.Converter;

import com.mongodb.BasicDBObject;
import com.mongodb.DBObject;

public class PersonWriteConverter implements Converter<Person, DBObject> {

  public DBObject convert(Person source) {
    DBObject dbo = new BasicDBObject();
    dbo.put("_id", source.getId());
    dbo.put("name", source.getFirstName());
    dbo.put("age", source.getAge());
    return dbo;
  }
}

An example implementation of a Converter that converts from a DBObject ot a Person object is shownn below

public class PersonReadConverter implements Converter<DBObject, Person> {

  public Person convert(DBObject source) {
    Person p = new Person((ObjectId) source.get("_id"), (String) source.get("name"));
    p.setAge((Integer) source.get("age"));
    return p;
  }
}

The Mongo Spring namespace provides a convenience way to register Spring Converters with the MappingMongoConverter. The configuration snippet below shows how to manually register converter beans as well as configuring the wrapping MappingMongoConverter into a MongoTemplate.

<mongo:db-factory dbname="database"/>

<mongo:mapping-converter>
  <mongo:custom-converters>
    <mongo:converter ref="readConverter"/>
    <mongo:converter>
      <bean class="org.springframework.data.mongodb.test.PersonWriteConverter"/>
    </mongo:converter>
  </mongo:custom-converters>
</mongo:mapping-converter>

<bean id="readConverter" class="org.springframework.data.mongodb.test.PersonReadConverter"/>

<bean id="mongoTemplate" class="org.springframework.data.mongodb.core.MongoTemplate">
  <constructor-arg name="mongoDbFactory" ref="mongoDbFactory"/>
  <constructor-arg name="mongoConverter" ref="mappingConverter"/>
</bean>

You can also use the base-package attribute of the custom-converters element to enable classpath scanning for all Converter and GenericConverter implementations below the given package.

<mongo:mapping-converter>
  <mongo:custom-converters base-package="com.acme.**.converters" />
</mongo:mapping-converter>

Generally we inspect the Converter implementations for the source and target types they convert from and to. Depending on whether one of those is a type MongoDB can handle natively we will register the converter instance as reading or writing one. Have a look at the following samples:

// Write converter as only the target type is one Mongo can handle natively
class MyConverter implements Converter<Person, String> { … }

// Read converter as only the source type is one Mongo can handle natively
class MyConverter implements Converter<String, Person> { … }

In case you write a Converter whose source and target type are native Mongo types there's no way for us to determine whether we should consider it as reading or writing converter. Registering the converter instance as both might lead to unwanted results then. E.g. a Converter<String, Long> is ambiguous although it probably does not make sense to try to convert all Strings into Longs when writing. To be generally able to force the infrastructure to register a converter for one way only we provide @ReadingConverter as well as @WritingConverter to be used at the converter implementation.

We can create an index on a collection to improve query performance.

mongoTemplate.indexOps(Person.class).ensureIndex(new Index().on("name",Order.ASCENDING));        

You can create both standard indexes and geospatial indexes using the classes IndexDefinition and GeoSpatialIndex respectfully. For example, given the Venue class defined in a previous section, you would declare a geospatial query as shown below

mongoTemplate.indexOps(Venue.class).ensureIndex(new GeospatialIndex("location"));

The IndexOperations interface has the method getIndexInfo that returns a list of IndexInfo objects. This contains all the indexes defined on the collectcion. Here is an example that defines an index on the Person class that has age property.

template.indexOps(Person.class).ensureIndex(new Index().on("age", Order.DESCENDING).unique(Duplicates.DROP));

List<IndexInfo> indexInfoList = template.indexOps(Person.class).getIndexInfo();

// Contains
// [IndexInfo [fieldSpec={_id=ASCENDING}, name=_id_, unique=false, dropDuplicates=false, sparse=false], 
//  IndexInfo [fieldSpec={age=DESCENDING}, name=age_-1, unique=true, dropDuplicates=true, sparse=false]]

It's time to look at some code examples showing how to use the MongoTemplate. First we look at creating our first collection.

DBCollection collection = null;
if (!mongoTemplate.getCollectionNames().contains("MyNewCollection")) {
    collection = mongoTemplate.createCollection("MyNewCollection");
}

mongoTemplate.dropCollection("MyNewCollection");        

As you've just seen there are a few keywords triggering geo-spatial operations within a MongoDB query. The Near keyword allows some further modification. Let's have look at some examples:

public interface PersonRepository extends MongoRepository<Person, String>

  // { 'location' : { '$near' : [point.x, point.y], '$maxDistance' : distance}}
  List<Person> findByLocationNear(Point location, Distance distance);
}

Adding a Distance parameter to the query method allows restricting results to those within the given distance. If the Distance was set up containing a Metric we will transparently use $nearSphere instead of $code.

Point point = new Point(43.7, 48.8);
Distance distance = new Distance(200, Metrics.KILOMETERS);
… = repository.findByLocationNear(point, distance);
// {'location' : {'$nearSphere' : [43.7, 48.8], '$maxDistance' : 0.03135711885774796}}

As you can see using a Distance equipped with a Metric causes $nearSphere clause to be added instead of a plain $near. Beyond that the actual distance gets calculated according to the Metrics used.

public interface PersonRepository extends MongoRepository<Person, String>

  // {'geoNear' : 'location', 'near' : [x, y] }
  GeoResults<Person> findByLocationNear(Point location);

  // No metric: {'geoNear' : 'person', 'near' : [x, y], maxDistance : distance }
  // Metric: {'geoNear' : 'person', 'near' : [x, y], 'maxDistance' : distance, 
  //          'distanceMultiplier' : metric.multiplier, 'spherical' : true }
  GeoResults<Person> findByLocationNear(Point location, Distance distance);

  // {'geoNear' : 'location', 'near' : [x, y] }
  GeoResults<Person> findByLocationNear(Point location);
}

By adding the annotation org.springframework.data.mongodb.repository.Query repository finder methods you can specify a MongoDB JSON query string to use instead of having the query derived from the method name. For example

public interface PersonRepository extends MongoRepository<Person, String>

  @Query("{ 'firstname' : ?0 }")
  List<Person> findByThePersonsFirstname(String firstname);

}

The placeholder ?0 lets you substitute the value from the method arguments into the JSON query string.

You can also use the filter property to restrict the set of properties that will be mapped into the Java object. For example,

public interface PersonRepository extends MongoRepository<Person, String>

  @Query(value="{ 'firstname' : ?0 }", fields="{ 'firstname' : 1, 'lastname' : 1}")
  List<Person> findByThePersonsFirstname(String firstname);

}

This will return only the firstname, lastname and Id properties of the Person objects. The age property, a java.lang.Integer, will not be set and its value will therefore be null.

MongoDB repository support integrates with the QueryDSL project which provides a means to perform type-safe queries in Java. To quote from the project description, "Instead of writing queries as inline strings or externalizing them into XML files they are constructed via a fluent API." It provides the following features

Please refer to the QueryDSL documentation which describes how to bootstrap your environment for APT based code generation using Maven or using Ant.

Using QueryDSL you will be able to write queries as shown below

QPerson person = new QPerson("person");
List<Person> result = repository.findAll(person.address.zipCode.eq("C0123"));

Page<Person> page = repository.findAll(person.lastname.contains("a"), 
                                       new PageRequest(0, 2, Direction.ASC, "lastname"));

QPerson is a class that is generated (via the Java annotation post processing tool) which is a Predicate that allows you to write type safe queries. Notice that there are no strings in the query other than the value "C0123".

You can use the generated Predicate class via the interface QueryDslPredicateExecutor which is shown below

public interface QueryDslPredicateExecutor<T> {

  T findOne(Predicate predicate);

  List<T> findAll(Predicate predicate);

  List<T> findAll(Predicate predicate, OrderSpecifier<?>... orders);

  Page<T> findAll(Predicate predicate, Pageable pageable);

  Long count(Predicate predicate);
}

To use this in your repository implementation, simply inherit from it in addition to other repository interfaces. This is shown below

public interface PersonRepository extends MongoRepository<Person, String>, QueryDslPredicateExecutor<Person> {

   // additional finder methods go here

}

We think you will find this an extremely powerful tool for writing MongoDB queries.

Instances of the repository interfaces are usually created by a container, which Spring is the most natural choice when working with Spring Data. As of version 1.3.0 Spring Data MongoDB ships with a custom CDI extension that allows using the repository abstraction in CDI environments. The extension is part of the JAR so all you need to do to activate it is dropping the Spring Data MongoDB JAR into your classpath. You can now set up the infrastructure by implementing a CDI Producer for the MongoTemplate:

class MongoTemplateProducer {

    @Produces
    @ApplicationScoped
    public MongoOperations createMongoTemplate() throws UnknownHostException, MongoException {

        MongoDbFactory factory = new SimpleMongoDbFactory(new Mongo(), "database");
        return new MongoTemplate(factory);
    }
}

The Spring Data MongoDB CDI extension will pick up the MongoTemplate available as CDI bean and create a proxy for a Spring Data repository whenever an bean of a repository type is requested by the container. Thus obtaining an instance of a Spring Data repository is a matter of declaring an @Inject-ed property:

class RepositoryClient {

  @Inject
  PersonRepository repository;

  public void businessMethod() {

    List<Person> people = repository.findAll();
  }
}

MongoDB requires that you have an '_id' field for all documents. If you don't provide one the driver will assign a ObjectId with a generated value. The "_id" field can be of any type the, other than arrays, so long as it is unique. The driver naturally supports all primitive types and Dates. When using the MongoMappingConverter there are certain rules that govern how properties from the Java class is mapped to this '_id' field.

The following outlines what field will be mapped to the '_id' document field:

The following outlines what type conversion, if any, will be done on the property mapped to the _id document field.

When querying and updating MongoTemplate will use the converter to handle conversions of the Query and Update objects that correspond to the above rules for saving documents so field names and types used in your queries will be able to match what is in your domain classes.

The MappingMongoConverter can use metadata to drive the mapping of objects to documents. An overview of the annotations is provided below

The mapping metadata infrastructure is defined in a seperate spring-data-commons project that is technology agnostic. Specific subclasses are using in the MongoDB support to support annotation based metadata. Other strategies are also possible to put in place if there is demand.

Here is an example of a more complex mapping.

@Document
@CompoundIndexes({
    @CompoundIndex(name = "age_idx", def = "{'lastName': 1, 'age': -1}")
})
public class Person<T extends Address> {

  @Id
  private String id;

  @Indexed(unique = true)
  private Integer ssn;

  @Field("fName")
  private String firstName;

  @Indexed
  private String lastName;

  private Integer age;

  @Transient
  private Integer accountTotal;

  @DBRef
  private List<Account> accounts;

  private T address;

  
  public Person(Integer ssn) {
    this.ssn = ssn;
  }
  
  @PersistenceConstructor
  public Person(Integer ssn, String firstName, String lastName, Integer age, T address) {
    this.ssn = ssn;
    this.firstName = firstName;
    this.lastName = lastName;
    this.age = age;
    this.address = address;
  }

  public String getId() {
    return id;
  }

 // no setter for Id.  (getter is only exposed for some unit testing)

  public Integer getSsn() {
    return ssn;
  }


// other getters/setters ommitted

The mapping subsystem allows the customization of the object construction by annotating a constructor with the @PersistenceConstructor annotation. The values to be used for the constructor parameters are resolved in the following way:

class OrderItem {
  
  private @Id String id;
  private int quantity;
  private double unitPrice;

  OrderItem(String id, @Value("#root.qty ?: 0") int quantity, double unitPrice) {
    this.id = id;
    this.quantity = quantity;
    this.unitPrice = unitPrice;
  }

  // getters/setters ommitted
}

DBObject input = new BasicDBObject("id", "4711");
input.put("unitPrice", 2.5);
input.put("qty",5);
OrderItem item = converter.read(OrderItem.class, input);

	Note
	The SpEL expression in the @Value annotation of the quantity parameter falls back to the value 0 if the given property path cannot be resolved.

Additional examples for using the @PersistenceConstructor annotation can be found in the MappingMongoConverterUnitTests test suite.

Compound indexes are also supported. They are defined at the class level, rather than on indidvidual properties.

	Note
	Compound indexes are very important to improve the performance of queries that involve criteria on multiple fields

Here's an example that creates a compound index of lastName in ascending order and age in descending order:

package com.mycompany.domain;

@Document
@CompoundIndexes({
    @CompoundIndex(name = "age_idx", def = "{'lastName': 1, 'age': -1}")
})
public class Person {

  @Id
  private ObjectId id;
  private Integer age;
  private String firstName;
  private String lastName;

}
          

The mapping framework doesn't have to store child objects embedded within the document. You can also store them separately and use a DBRef to refer to that document. When the object is loaded from MongoDB, those references will be eagerly resolved and you will get back a mapped object that looks the same as if it had been stored embedded within your master document.

Here's an example of using a DBRef to refer to a specific document that exists independently of the object in which it is referenced (both classes are shown in-line for brevity's sake):

@Document
public class Account {

  @Id
  private ObjectId id;
  private Float total;

}

@Document
public class Person {

  @Id
  private ObjectId id;
  @Indexed
  private Integer ssn;
  @DBRef
  private List<Account> accounts;

}
        

There's no need to use something like @OneToMany because the mapping framework sees that you're wanting a one-to-many relationship because there is a List of objects. When the object is stored in MongoDB, there will be a list of DBRefs rather than the Account objects themselves.

	Important
	The mapping framework does not handle cascading saves. If you change an Account object that is referenced by a Person object, you must save the Account object separately. Calling save on the Person object will not automatically save the Account objects in the property accounts.

Events are fired throughout the lifecycle of the mapping process. This is described in the Lifecycle Events section.

Simply declaring these beans in your Spring ApplicationContext will cause them to be invoked whenever the event is dispatched.

When storing and querying your objects it is convenient to have a MongoConverter instance handle the mapping of all Java types to DBObjects. However, sometimes you may want the MongoConverter's do most of the work but allow you to selectivly handle the conversion for a particular type or to optimize performance.

To selectivly handle the conversion yourself, register one or more one or more org.springframework.core.convert.converter.Converter instances with the MongoConverter.

	Note
	Spring 3.0 introduced a core.convert package that provides a general type conversion system. This is described in detail in the Spring reference documentation section entitled Spring 3 Type Conversion.

The method customConversions in AbstractMongoConfiguration can be used to configure Converters. The examples here at the begining of this chapter show how to perform the configuration using Java and XML.

Below is an example of a Spring Converter implementation that converts from a DBObject to a Person POJO.

@ReadingConverter
 public class PersonReadConverter implements Converter<DBObject, Person> {

  public Person convert(DBObject source) {
    Person p = new Person((ObjectId) source.get("_id"), (String) source.get("name"));
    p.setAge((Integer) source.get("age"));
    return p;
  }

}

Here is an example that converts from a Person to a DBObject.

@WritingConverter
public class PersonWriteConverter implements Converter<Person, DBObject> {

  public DBObject convert(Person source) {
    DBObject dbo = new BasicDBObject();
    dbo.put("_id", source.getId());
    dbo.put("name", source.getFirstName());
    dbo.put("age", source.getAge());
    return dbo;
  }

}