MongoDB – $sort Modifier

MongoDB provides different types of array update operators to update the values of the array fields in the documents and $sort modifier is one of them. This modifier is used to order the items of the array during $push operation or sort the items of the array in ascending or descending order during $push operation.
Syntax:

{
  $push: {
     <field>: {
       $each: [ <value1>, <value2>, ... ],
       $sort: <sort specification>
     }
  }
}

• If you want to sort the items (that are not documents) of the array or the array items(that are documents) in ascending order, then set the value of the $sort modifier to 1.
• If you want to sort the items (that are not documents) of the array or the array items(that are documents) in descending order, then set the value of the $sort modifier to -1.
• If the array items are documents and you want to sort fields of the documents, then specify a sort document with the field and the order (ascending or descending order), i.e., { <field>: 1 } or { <field>: -1 }.
  Note: Please do not mention the containing array field in the sort specification, like { “myArray.field”: 1} it is wrong.
• Modifier must appear with $each modifier in the $push operator. You are allowed to pass an empty array[] in the $each modifier which help $sort modifier to show its effect. If you use the $sort modifier without $each modifier, then you will get an error.
• This modifier can sort the items of the array that are not documents.
• If the array items are documents, then this modifier can sort by either the whole document or by a specified field in the documents.

In the following examples, we are working with:

Database: GeeksforGeeks
Collection: contributor
Document: two documents that contain the details of the contributor in the form of field-value pairs.

Sorting array items that are not documents:

In this example, we are sorting all the items of the language field in ascending order.

db.contributor.update({name: "Suman"},
{$push: { language: { $each: ["Go", "Scala"],
 $sort: 1}}})

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Sorting an array of documents:

In this example, we are sorting all the documents of articles field in ascending order.

db.contributor.update({name: "Suman"},
                      {$push: { articles: { $each: [], $sort: 1}}})

Sorting array of documents by a field:

In this example, we are sorting all the documents of articles field by tArticle field(descending order).

db.contributor.update({name: "Suman"},
                      {$push: { articles: { $each: [{language: "Go", tArticles: 120},
                        {language: "Perl", tArticles: 24}], $sort:{tArticles: -1}}}})

Updating the array using $sort modifier:

In this example, we are sorting the items of the language field in descending order.

db.contributor.update({},
                     {$push: {language: {$each:[], $sort: -1}}},
                       {multi: true})

Using $sort modifier with other modifiers with $push operator:

In this example, we are using the $sort modifier with other modifiers like $each and $slice with $push operator.

db.contributor.update({name: "Rohit"},
                      {$push: { language: { $each: ["C", "Go"],
                        $sort: 1, $slice: 4}}})

Here,

• The $each modifier is used to add multiple documents to the language array.
• The $sort modifier is used to sort all the items of the modified language array in ascending.
• The $slice modifier is used to keep only the first four sorted items of the language array.