MongoDB $ne

Summary: in this tutorial, you’ll learn how to use the MongoDB $ne operator to query documents from a collection.

Introduction to MongoDB $ne operator

The $ne is a comparison query operator that allows you to select documents where the value of a filed is not equal to a specified value. It also includes documents that don’t contain the field.

The $ne is called the inequality operator. Here is the syntax of the $ne operator:

{ field: {$ne: value}}
Code language: CSS (css)

MongoDB $ne operator examples

We’ll use the following products collection:

db.products.insertMany([ { "_id" : 1, "name" : "xPhone", "price" : 799, "releaseDate": ISODate("2011-05-14"), "spec" : { "ram" : 4, "screen" : 6.5, "cpu" : 2.66 },"color":["white","black"],"storage":[64,128,256]}, { "_id" : 2, "name" : "xTablet", "price" : 899, "releaseDate": ISODate("2011-09-01") , "spec" : { "ram" : 16, "screen" : 9.5, "cpu" : 3.66 },"color":["white","black","purple"],"storage":[128,256,512]}, { "_id" : 3, "name" : "SmartTablet", "price" : 899, "releaseDate": ISODate("2015-01-14"), "spec" : { "ram" : 12, "screen" : 9.7, "cpu" : 3.66 },"color":["blue"],"storage":[16,64,128]}, { "_id" : 4, "name" : "SmartPad", "price" : 699, "releaseDate": ISODate("2020-05-14"),"spec" : { "ram" : 8, "screen" : 9.7, "cpu" : 1.66 },"color":["white","orange","gold","gray"],"storage":[128,256,1024]}, { "_id" : 5, "name" : "SmartPhone", "price" : 599,"releaseDate": ISODate("2022-09-14"), "spec" : { "ram" : 4, "screen" : 9.7, "cpu" : 1.66 },"color":["white","orange","gold","gray"],"storage":[128,256]} , { "_id" : 6, "name" : "xWidget", "spec" : { "ram" : 64, "screen" : 9.7, "cpu" : 3.66 },"color":["black"],"storage":[1024]} ])
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

1) Using the $ne operator to select documents where the value of a field is greater than a specified value

The following example uses the $ne operator to select documents from the products collection where the price is not equal to 899:

db.products.find({ price: { $ne: 899 } }, { name: 1, price: 1 })
Code language: CSS (css)

It matches the following documents:

[ { _id: 1, name: 'xPhone', price: 799 }, { _id: 4, name: 'SmartPad', price: 699 }, { _id: 5, name: 'SmartPhone', price: 599 }, { _id: 6, name: 'xWidget' } ]
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

2) Using the $ne operator to check if a field in an embedded document is not equal to a value

The following example uses $ne operator to select documents where the value of the screen field in the spec document is not equal to 9.7:

db.products.find({ "spec.screen": { $ne: 9.7 } }, { name: 1, "spec.screen": 1 })
Code language: PHP (php)

Output:

[ { _id: 1, name: 'xPhone', spec: { screen: 6.5 } }, { _id: 2, name: 'xTablet', spec: { screen: 9.5 } } ]
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

3) Using the $ne operator to check if an array element is not equal to a value

The following example uses the $ne operator to query the products collection to find documents where the array storage does not have any element that equals 128:

db.products.find({ storage: { $ne: 128 } }, { name: 1, storage: 1 });
Code language: CSS (css)

It matched the following documents:

[ { _id: 6, name: 'xWidget', storage: [ 1024 ] } ]
Code language: CSS (css)

4) Using the $ne operator to check if the value of a field is not equal to a date

The following query uses the $ne operator to find documents from the products collection where the release date is not 2015-01-14:

db.products.find({ releaseDate: { $ne: new ISODate('2015-01-14') } }, { name: 1, releaseDate: 1 });
Code language: CSS (css)

It returns the documents whose release dates are not 2015-01-14 and also the document that does not include the field releaseDate :

[ { _id: 1, name: 'xPhone', releaseDate: ISODate("2011-05-14T00:00:00.000Z") }, { _id: 2, name: 'xTablet', releaseDate: ISODate("2011-09-01T00:00:00.000Z") }, { _id: 4, name: 'SmartPad', releaseDate: ISODate("2020-05-14T00:00:00.000Z") }, { _id: 5, name: 'SmartPhone', releaseDate: ISODate("2022-09-14T00:00:00.000Z") }, { _id: 6, name: 'xWidget' } ]
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

Summary

  • Use the $ne operator to check if the value of a field is not equal to a specified value.
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