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$sort (aggregation)

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Definition

$sort

Sorts all input documents and returns them to the pipeline in sorted order.

The $sort stage has the following prototype form:

{ $sort: { <field1>: <sort order>, <field2>: <sort order> ... } }

$sort takes a document that specifies the field(s) to sort by and the respective sort order. <sort order> can have one of the following values:

Value Description
1 Sort ascending.
-1 Sort descending.
{ $meta: "textScore" } Sort by the computed textScore metadata in descending order. See Metadata Sort for an example.

If sorting on multiple fields, sort order is evaluated from left to right. For example, in the form above, documents are first sorted by <field1>. Then documents with the same <field1> values are further sorted by <field2>.

Examples

Ascending/Descending Sort

For the field or fields to sort by, set the sort order to 1 or -1 to specify an ascending or descending sort respectively, as in the following example:

db.users.aggregate(
   [
     { $sort : { age : -1, posts: 1 } }
   ]
)

This operation sorts the documents in the users collection, in descending order according by the age field and then in ascending order according to the value in the posts field.

When comparing values of different BSON types, MongoDB uses the following comparison order, from lowest to highest:

  1. MinKey (internal type)
  2. Null
  3. Numbers (ints, longs, doubles, decimals)
  4. Symbol, String
  5. Object
  6. Array
  7. BinData
  8. ObjectId
  9. Boolean
  10. Date
  11. Timestamp
  12. Regular Expression
  13. MaxKey (internal type)

For details on the comparison/sort order for specific types, see Comparison/Sort Order.

Metadata Sort

Specify in the { <sort-key> } document, a new field name for the computed metadata and specify the $meta expression as its value, as in the following example:

db.users.aggregate(
   [
     { $match: { $text: { $search: "operating" } } },
     { $sort: { score: { $meta: "textScore" }, posts: -1 } }
   ]
)

This operation uses the $text operator to match the documents, and then sorts first by the "textScore" metadata and then by descending order of the posts field. The specified metadata determines the sort order. For example, the "textScore" metadata sorts in descending order. See $meta for more information on metadata.

$sort Operator and Memory

$sort + $limit Memory Optimization

When a $sort immediately precedes a $limit in the pipeline, the $sort operation only maintains the top n results as it progresses, where n is the specified limit, and MongoDB only needs to store n items in memory. This optimization still applies when allowDiskUse is true and the n items exceed the aggregation memory limit.

Optimizations are subject to change between releases.

$sort and Memory Restrictions

The $sort stage has a limit of 100 megabytes of RAM. By default, if the stage exceeds this limit, $sort will produce an error. To allow for the handling of large datasets, set the allowDiskUse option to true to enable $sort operations to write to temporary files. See the allowDiskUse option in db.collection.aggregate() method and the aggregate command for details.

Changed in version 2.6: The memory limit for $sort changed from 10 percent of RAM to 100 megabytes of RAM.

$sort Operator and Performance

$sort operator can take advantage of an index when placed at the beginning of the pipeline or placed before the $project, $unwind, and $group aggregation operators. If $project, $unwind, or $group occur prior to the $sort operation, $sort cannot use any indexes.