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Count Documents
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Overview
In this guide, you can learn how to retrieve an accurate and estimated count of the number of documents in a collection.
Retrieve an Accurate Count
Use the count_documents() method to count the number of documents that are in a
collection. To count the number of documents that match a specific search
critera, pass a dictionary that includes a query filter to the
count_documents() method.
To learn more about specifying a query, see Specify a Query.
Count All Documents
To return a count of all documents in the collection, pass an empty dictionary to
the count_documents() method, as shown in the following example:
collection.count_documents({})
Count Specific Documents
To return a count of documents that match specific search criteria, specify your
query in the count_documents() method, as shown in the following example:
collection.count_documents({ "author": "Mike" })
Customize Count Behavior
The count_documents() method accepts optional parameters, which represent
options you can use to configure the count operation. If you don't specify any
options, the driver does not customize the count operation.
The following table describes the options you can set to customize count_documents():
Property | Description |
|---|---|
comment | A comment to attach to the operation. |
session | An instance of ClientSession. |
skip | The number of documents to skip before returning results. |
limit | The maximum number of documents to count. Must be a positive integer. |
maxTimeMS | The maximum amount of time to allow the operation to run, in
milliseconds. |
collation | An instance of Collation. |
hint | Gets or sets the index to scan for documents. |
Retrieve an Estimated Count
You can get an estimate of the number of documents in a collection by calling
the estimated_document_count() method. The method estimates the amount of
documents based on collection metadata, which might be faster than performing an
accurate count.
The following example estimates the number of documents in a collection:
collection.estimated_document_count()
Customize Estimated Count Behavior
The estimated_document_count() method accepts optional parameters, which
represent options you can use to configure the count operation. If you don't
specify any options, the driver does not customize the count operation.
The following table describes the options you can set to customize estimated_document_count():
Property | Description |
|---|---|
comment | A comment to attach to the operation. |
maxTimeMS | The maximum amount of time to allow the operation to run, in
milliseconds. |
Troubleshooting
DeprecationWarning: Count Is Deprecated
PyMongo no longer supports the count() method.
Instead, use the count_documents() method from the Collection class.
Important
The count_documents() method belongs to the Collection class.
If you try to call Cursor.count_documents(),
PyMongo raises the following error:
Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> AttributeError: 'Cursor' object has no attribute 'count'
API Documentation
To learn more about any of the methods or types discussed in this guide, see the following API documentation: