Open In App

MongoDB – Current Date Operator ($currentDate)

Improve
Improve
Improve
Like Article
Like
Save Article
Save
Share
Report issue
Report

MongoDB provides different types of field update operators to update the values of the fields of the documents and $currentDate operator is one of them. This operator is used to set the value of a field to the current date (either as a timestamp or as a Date).

  • The default type of $currentDate operator is a Date.
  • This operator can also work with embedded/nested documents or arrays.
  • You can use this operator in methods like update(), updateOne(), etc., according to your requirements.
  • If the specified field is not found then this operator will add that field in the document.

Syntax:

{ $currentDate: { <field1>: <typeSpecification1>, ... } }

Here, in this method, typeSpecification1 is either a boolean true to set the value of a field to the current date as a Date or a document { $type: "timestamp" } or { $type: "date" } which explicitly specifies the type, here the operator is case-sensitive only accept lowercase “timestamp” or “date”. To specify field in embedded/nested documents with the help of dot notation.

In the following examples, we are working with:

Database: GeeksforGeeks
Collection: Employee
Document: three documents that contain the details of the employees in the form of field-value pairs.

Update the date field using $currentDate operator:

In the example, we are updating the value of joiningDate field of an employee’s document whose first name is Om.




db.Employee.updateOne({"name.first": "Om"}, 
                      {$currentDate: {joiningDate: true}})


Update the date field in the embedded document using $currentDate operator:

In the example, we are updating the value of joiningDate field of an employee’s document whose first name is .




db.Employee.updateOne({"name.first": "Sumit"}, 
                      {$currentDate: {"personalDetails.joiningDate": true}})


Adding date field using $currentDate operator:

In the example, we are adding a new date field whose value is assigned by the $cuurentDate operator in the employee’s document whose first name is Amu.




db.Employee.updateOne({"name.first": "Amu"},
                      {$currentDate: {joiningDate: {$type: "date"}}})




Last Updated : 10 May, 2020
Like Article
Save Article
Previous
Next
Share your thoughts in the comments
Similar Reads