$match (aggregation)

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Definition
Behavior
Examples
Additional Information

Definition

$match

Filters the documents to pass only the documents that match the specified condition(s) to the next pipeline stage.

The $match stage has the following prototype form:

{ $match: { <query> } }

$match takes a document that specifies the query conditions. The query syntax is identical to the read operation query syntax; i.e. $match does not accept raw aggregation expressions. Instead, use a $expr query expression to include aggregation expression in $match.

Behavior

Pipeline Optimization

Place the $match as early in the aggregation pipeline as possible. Because $match limits the total number of documents in the aggregation pipeline, earlier $match operations minimize the amount of processing down the pipe.
If you place a $match at the very beginning of a pipeline, the query can take advantage of indexes like any other db.collection.find() or db.collection.findOne().

Restrictions

The $match query syntax is identical to the read operation query syntax; i.e. $match does not accept raw aggregation expressions. To include aggregation expression in $match, use a $expr query expression:
```
{ $match: { $expr: { <aggregation expression> } } }
```
You cannot use $where in $match queries as part of the aggregation pipeline.
You cannot use $near or $nearSphere in $match queries as part of the aggregation pipeline. As an alternative, you can either:
- Use $geoNear stage instead of the $match stage.
- Use $geoWithin query operator with $center or $centerSphere in the $match stage.
To use $text in the $match stage, the $match stage has to be the first stage of the pipeline.

Views do not support text search.

Examples

The examples use a collection named articles with the following documents:

{ "_id" : ObjectId("512bc95fe835e68f199c8686"), "author" : "dave", "score" : 80, "views" : 100 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("512bc962e835e68f199c8687"), "author" : "dave", "score" : 85, "views" : 521 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("55f5a192d4bede9ac365b257"), "author" : "ahn", "score" : 60, "views" : 1000 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("55f5a192d4bede9ac365b258"), "author" : "li", "score" : 55, "views" : 5000 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("55f5a1d3d4bede9ac365b259"), "author" : "annT", "score" : 60, "views" : 50 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("55f5a1d3d4bede9ac365b25a"), "author" : "li", "score" : 94, "views" : 999 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("55f5a1d3d4bede9ac365b25b"), "author" : "ty", "score" : 95, "views" : 1000 }

Equality Match

The following operation uses $match to perform a simple equality match:

db.articles.aggregate(
    [ { $match : { author : "dave" } } ]
);

The $match selects the documents where the author field equals dave, and the aggregation returns the following:

{ "_id" : ObjectId("512bc95fe835e68f199c8686"), "author" : "dave", "score" : 80, "views" : 100 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("512bc962e835e68f199c8687"), "author" : "dave", "score" : 85, "views" : 521 }

Perform a Count

The following example selects documents to process using the $match pipeline operator and then pipes the results to the $group pipeline operator to compute a count of the documents:

db.articles.aggregate( [
  { $match: { $or: [ { score: { $gt: 70, $lt: 90 } }, { views: { $gte: 1000 } } ] } },
  { $group: { _id: null, count: { $sum: 1 } } }
] );

In the aggregation pipeline, $match selects the documents where either the score is greater than 70 and less than 90 or the views is greater than or equal to 1000. These documents are then piped to the $group to perform a count. The aggregation returns the following:

{ "_id" : null, "count" : 5 }

Additional Information

Refer to the following pages for more information and use cases on aggregation.

Filter Data on Atlas Using Atlas Search

For your $search queries against data on your Atlas cluster, you can use the Atlas Search compound operator filter option to match or filter documents. Running $match after $search is less performant than running $search with the compound operator filter option. To learn more about the filter option, see compound.

Aggregation Tutorials

← $lookup (aggregation)$merge (aggregation) →