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$max

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  • Definition
  • Behavior
  • Examples

Definition

$max

Note

Deprecated since v3.2

Starting in v3.2, the $max operator is deprecated in the mongo shell. In the mongo shell, use cursor.max() instead.

Specify a $max value to specify the exclusive upper bound for a specific index in order to constrain the results of find(). The $max specifies the upper bound for all keys of a specific index in order.

The mongo shell provides the max() wrapper method:

db.collection.find( { <query> } ).max( { field1: <max value>, ... fieldN: <max valueN> } )

You can also specify $max with either of the two forms:

db.collection.find( { <query> } )._addSpecial( "$max", { field1: <max value1>, ... fieldN: <max valueN> } )
db.collection.find( { $query: { <query> }, $max: { field1: <max value1>, ... fieldN: <max valueN> } } )

Note

Index Use

Starting in MongoDB 4.2, you must explicitly specify the particular index with the hint() method to run max()/ $max with the following exception: you do not need to hint if the find() query is an equality condition on the _id field { _id: <value> }.

Behavior

Interaction with Index Selection

Because max() requires an index on a field, and forces the query to use this index, you may prefer the $lt operator for the query if possible. Consider the following example:

db.collection.find(  { _id: { $in: [ 6, 7 ] } } ).max( { age: 25 } ).hint( { age: 1 } )

The query uses the index on the age field, even if the index on _id may be better.

Index Bounds

If you use $max with $min to specify a range:

  • the index bounds specified in $min and $max must both refer to the keys of the same index.

  • the bound specified by $max must be greater than the bound specified by $min.

    Changed in version 4.0.

$max without $min

The $min and $max operators indicate that the system should avoid normal query planning. Instead they construct an index scan where the index bounds are explicitly specified by the values given in $min and $max.

Warning

If one of the two boundaries is not specified, the query plan will be an index scan that is unbounded on one side. This may degrade performance compared to a query containing neither operator, or one that uses both operators to more tightly constrain the index scan.

Examples

The following examples use the mongo shell wrappers.

Specify Exclusive Upper Bound

Consider the following operations on a collection named collection that has an index { age: 1 }:

db.collection.find( { <query> } ).max( { age: 100 } ).hint( { age: 1 } )

This operation limits the query to those documents where the field age is less than 100 and forces a query plan which scans the { age: 1 } index from MinKey to 100.

Use with $min

Use $max alone or in conjunction with $min to limit results to a specific range for the same index, as in the following example:

Note

Starting in MongoDB 4.0, the bound specified by $max must be greater than the bound specified by $min.

db.collection.find().min( { age: 20 } ).max( { age: 25 } ).hint( { age: 1 } )

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