$push (aggregation)

Use in $group Stage

Consider a sales collection with the following documents:

{ "_id" : 1, "item" : "abc", "price" : 10, "quantity" : 2, "date" : ISODate("2014-01-01T08:00:00Z") }
{ "_id" : 2, "item" : "jkl", "price" : 20, "quantity" : 1, "date" : ISODate("2014-02-03T09:00:00Z") }
{ "_id" : 3, "item" : "xyz", "price" : 5, "quantity" : 5, "date" : ISODate("2014-02-03T09:05:00Z") }
{ "_id" : 4, "item" : "abc", "price" : 10, "quantity" : 10, "date" : ISODate("2014-02-15T08:00:00Z") }
{ "_id" : 5, "item" : "xyz", "price" : 5, "quantity" : 10, "date" : ISODate("2014-02-15T09:05:00Z") }
{ "_id" : 6, "item" : "xyz", "price" : 5, "quantity" : 5, "date" : ISODate("2014-02-15T12:05:10Z") }
{ "_id" : 7, "item" : "xyz", "price" : 5, "quantity" : 10, "date" : ISODate("2014-02-15T14:12:12Z") }

Grouping the documents by the day and the year of the date field, the following operation uses the $push accumulator to compute the list of items and quantities sold for each group:

db.sales.aggregate(
   [
   { $sort: { date: 1, item: 1 } },
   {
       $group:
         {
           _id: { day: { $dayOfYear: "$date"}, year: { $year: "$date" } },
           itemsSold: { $push:  { item: "$item", quantity: "$quantity" } }
         }
     }
   ]
)

The operation returns the following results:

{
   "_id" : { "day" : 46, "year" : 2014 },
   "itemsSold" : [
      { "item" : "abc", "quantity" : 10 },
      { "item" : "xyz", "quantity" : 10 },
      { "item" : "xyz", "quantity" : 5 },
      { "item" : "xyz", "quantity" : 10 }
   ]
}
{
   "_id" : { "day" : 34, "year" : 2014 },
   "itemsSold" : [
      { "item" : "jkl", "quantity" : 1 },
      { "item" : "xyz", "quantity" : 5 }
   ]
}
{
   "_id" : { "day" : 1, "year" : 2014 },
   "itemsSold" : [ { "item" : "abc", "quantity" : 2 } ]
}

Use in $setWindowFields Stage

Create a cakeSales collection that contains cake sales in the states of California (CA) and Washington (WA):

db.cakeSales.insertMany( [
   { _id: 0, type: "chocolate", orderDate: new Date("2020-05-18T14:10:30Z"),
     state: "CA", price: 13, quantity: 120 },
   { _id: 1, type: "chocolate", orderDate: new Date("2021-03-20T11:30:05Z"),
     state: "WA", price: 14, quantity: 140 },
   { _id: 2, type: "vanilla", orderDate: new Date("2021-01-11T06:31:15Z"),
     state: "CA", price: 12, quantity: 145 },
   { _id: 3, type: "vanilla", orderDate: new Date("2020-02-08T13:13:23Z"),
     state: "WA", price: 13, quantity: 104 },
   { _id: 4, type: "strawberry", orderDate: new Date("2019-05-18T16:09:01Z"),
     state: "CA", price: 41, quantity: 162 },
   { _id: 5, type: "strawberry", orderDate: new Date("2019-01-08T06:12:03Z"),
     state: "WA", price: 43, quantity: 134 }
] )

This example uses $push in the $setWindowFields stage to output an array of cake sales quantity values for each state:

db.cakeSales.aggregate( [
   {
      $setWindowFields: {
         partitionBy: "$state",
         sortBy: { orderDate: 1 },
         output: {
            quantitiesForState: {
               $push: "$quantity",
               window: {
                  documents: [ "unbounded", "current" ]
               }
            }
         }
      }
   }
] )

In the example:

• partitionBy: "$state" partitions the documents in the collection by state. There are partitions for CA and WA.

• sortBy: { orderDate: 1 } sorts the documents in each partition by orderDate in ascending order (1), so the earliest orderDate is first.

• output sets the array of quantity values using $push for the documents in a documents window.

  The window contains documents between an unbounded lower limit and the current document in the output. This means $push appends the quantity values to the quantitiesForState array for the documents between the beginning of the partition and the current document.

In this output, the array of quantity values for CA and WA is shown in the quantitiesForState array:

{ "_id" : 4, "type" : "strawberry", "orderDate" : ISODate("2019-05-18T16:09:01Z"),
  "state" : "CA", "price" : 41, "quantity" : 162, "quantitiesForState" : [ 162 ] }
{ "_id" : 0, "type" : "chocolate", "orderDate" : ISODate("2020-05-18T14:10:30Z"),
  "state" : "CA", "price" : 13, "quantity" : 120, "quantitiesForState" : [ 162, 120 ] }
{ "_id" : 2, "type" : "vanilla", "orderDate" : ISODate("2021-01-11T06:31:15Z"),
  "state" : "CA", "price" : 12, "quantity" : 145, "quantitiesForState" : [ 162, 120, 145 ] }
{ "_id" : 5, "type" : "strawberry", "orderDate" : ISODate("2019-01-08T06:12:03Z"),
  "state" : "WA", "price" : 43, "quantity" : 134, "quantitiesForState" : [ 134 ] }
{ "_id" : 3, "type" : "vanilla", "orderDate" : ISODate("2020-02-08T13:13:23Z"),
  "state" : "WA", "price" : 13, "quantity" : 104, "quantitiesForState" : [ 134, 104 ] }
{ "_id" : 1, "type" : "chocolate", "orderDate" : ISODate("2021-03-20T11:30:05Z"),
  "state" : "WA", "price" : 14, "quantity" : 140, "quantitiesForState" : [ 134, 104, 140 ] }