// Relationships in MongoDB represent how various documents are logically related to each other. Relationships can be modeled via Embedded and Referenced approaches. Such relationships can be either 1:1, 1:N, N:1 or N:N.
//Embedded Relationships
{
"_id":ObjectId("52ffc33cd85242f436000001"),
"name": "Tom Benzamin",
"address": [
{
"building": "22 A, Indiana Apt",
"pincode": 123456,
"city": "Los Angeles",
"state": "California"
},
{
"building": "170 A, Acropolis Apt",
"pincode": 456789,
"city": "Chicago",
"state": "Illinois"
}
]
}
//This approach maintains all the related data in a single document, which makes it easy to retrieve and maintain. The whole document can be retrieved in a single query such as
db.users.findOne({"name":"Tom Benzamin"},{"address":1})
//Referenced Relationships
{
"_id":ObjectId("52ffc33cd85242f436000001"),
"contact": "987654321",
"dob": "01-01-1991",
"name": "Tom Benzamin",
"address_ids": [
ObjectId("52ffc4a5d85242602e000000"),
ObjectId("52ffc4a5d85242602e000001")
]
}
//As shown above, the user document contains the array field address_ids which contains ObjectIds of corresponding addresses. Using these ObjectIds, we can query the address documents and get address details from there. With this approach, we will need two queries: first to fetch the address_ids fields from user document and second to fetch these addresses from address collection.
var result = db.users.findOne({"name":"Tom Benzamin"},{"address_ids":1})
var addresses = db.address.find({"_id":{"$in":result["address_ids"]}})