I need to iterate through all of the collections in my MongoDB database and get the time when each of the collections was created (I understand that I could get the timestamp of each object in the collection, but I would rather not go that route if a simpler/faster method exists).
This should give you an idea of what I'm trying to do:
MongoDatabase _database;
// code elided
var result = _database.GetAllCollectionNames().Select(collectionName =>
{
_database.GetCollection( collectionName ) //.{GetCreatedDate())
});
As far as I know, MongoDB doesn't keep track of collection creation dates. However, it's really easy to do this yourself. Add a simple method, something like this, and use it whenever you create a new collection:
public static void CreateCollectionWithMetadata(string collectionName)
{
var result = _db.CreateCollection(collectionName);
if (result.Ok)
{
var collectionMetadata = _db.GetCollection("collectionMetadata");
collectionMetadata.Insert(new { Id = collectionName, Created = DateTime.Now });
}
}
Then whenever you need the information just query the collectionMetadata
collection. Or, if you want to use an extension method like in your example, do something like this:
public static DateTime GetCreatedDate(this MongoCollection collection)
{
var collectionMetadata = _db.GetCollection("collectionMetadata");
var metadata = collectionMetadata.FindOneById(collection.Name);
var created = metadata["Created"].AsDateTime;
return created;
}
The "creation date" is not part of the collection's metadata. A collection does not "know" when it was created. Some indexes have an ObjectId()
which implies a timestamp, but this is not consistent and not reliable.
Therefore, I don't believe this can be done.
Like Mr. Gates VP say, there is no way using the metadata... but you can get the oldest document in the collection and get it from the _id.
Moreover, you can insert an "empty" document in the collection for that purpose without recurring to maintain another collection.
And it's very easy get the oldest document:
old = db.collection.find({}, {_id}).sort({_id: 1}).limit(1)
dat = old._id.getTimestamp()
By default, all collection has an index over _id
field, making the find
efficient.
(I using MongoDb 3.6)