Executing MongoDB find queries in PHP

Question

I'm in a situation where I need to be able to run a direct mongodb query from inside of PHP, and am having troubles with the execute() function.

The following code will correctly execute and return a result from the database:

$m = new MongoClient();
$db = $m-><dbName>;
print_r($db->execute('db.<collection>.count()'));

However, if I replace count() with find() I get the following result:

Array
(
    [retval] => Array
        (
            [value] => DBQuery: <dbName>.<collection>-> undefined
        )

    [ok] => 1
)

Why does one of these queries work, and the other fail? And how can I overcome this issue? I've thought about writing something that will convert a MongoDB query into the necessary array format for the PHP Mongo library to work with, but that would be a lot of work that I don't want to go through.

This is the same problem that was brought up here: How to access MongoDB profile in PHP? - but no answers were given at that time.

This question: PHP MongoDB execute() locking collection utilizes the execute() method with find() and they say it works for them, but I'm not sure how.

Update:

So I'd updated mongo in pecl, but that didn't solve anything. However, I also did a YUM update, and that provided a separate package update for php-pecl-mongo-1.2.12-1.el6.x86_64 that brought me to 1.3.4-1.

Now, $db->execute('db.<collection>.find()) returns something...but not at all what I expect. Instead of returning a MongoCursor object instead an Array is returned, and while it has a retval field, there's no actual information in there from the query performed. It looks like this:

Array
(
    [retval] => Array
        (
            [_mongo] => Array
                (
                    [slaveOk] =>
                    [host] => EMBEDDED
                )

            [_db] => Array
                (
                    [_mongo] => Array
                        (
                            [slaveOk] =>
                            [host] => EMBEDDED
                        )

                    [_name] => test
                )

            [_collection] => Array
                (
                    [_mongo] => Array
                        (
                            [slaveOk] =>
                            [host] => EMBEDDED
                        )

                    [_db] => Array
                        (
                            [_mongo] => Array
                                (
                                    [slaveOk] =>
                                    [host] => EMBEDDED
                                )

                            [_name] => test
                        )

                    [_shortName] => hits
                    [_fullName] => test.hits
                )

            [_ns] => test.hits
            [_query] => Array
                (
                )

            [_fields] =>
            [_limit] => 0
            [_skip] => 0
            [_batchSize] => 0
            [_options] => 0
            [_cursor] =>
            [_numReturned] => 0
            [_special] =>
        )

    [ok] => 1
)

As you can see, there's not actually anything from the database there: how do I get to my actual rows?

Answer 1

I had the same problem, this is my solution using execute:

$m = new MongoClient();
$db = $m-><dbName>;
print_r($db->execute('return { count : db.<collection>.count() }'));

My result:

Array
(
    [retval] => Array
        (
            [count] => 10
        )

    [ok] => 1
)

Answer 2

$m = new MongoClient();
$db = $m-><dbName>;
print_r($db->execute('db.<collection>.toArray()'));

Suppose your databse name is test and collection name is foo .

print_r($m->test->execute('return db.foo.find().toArray()'));