db.collection.renameCollection()

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Definition

Behavior
Example

MongoDB with drivers

This page documents a mongosh method. To see the equivalent method in a MongoDB driver, see the corresponding page for your programming language:

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Definition

db.collection.renameCollection(target, dropTarget)

Renames a collection. Provides a wrapper for the renameCollection database command.

Parameter	Type	Description
`target`	string	The new name of the collection. Enclose the string in quotes. See Naming Restrictions.
`dropTarget`	boolean	Optional. If `true`, `mongod` drops the `target` of `renameCollection` prior to renaming the collection. The default value is `false`.

Behavior

The db.collection.renameCollection() method operates within a collection by changing the metadata associated with a given collection.

Refer to the documentation renameCollection for additional warnings and messages.

Warning

The db.collection.renameCollection() method and renameCollection command will invalidate open cursors which interrupts queries that are currently returning data.

For Change Streams, the db.collection.renameCollection() method and renameCollection command create an invalidate for any existing Change Streams opened on the source or target collection.

The method has the following limitations:
- db.collection.renameCollection() cannot move a collection between databases. Use renameCollection for these rename operations.
- You cannot rename views.
- db.collection.renameCollection() is not supported on time series collections.
- You cannot rename a collection to itself. If you try to rename a collection to itself an IllegalOperation error is thrown.

Resource Locking in Sharded Clusters

Changed in version 5.0.

When renaming a sharded or unsharded collection in a sharded cluster, the source and target collections are exclusively locked on every shard. Subsequent operations on the source and target collections must wait until the rename operation completes.

For more information on locking in MongoDB, see FAQ: Concurrency.

Resource Locking in Replica Sets

renameCollection() obtains an exclusive lock on the source and target collections for the duration of the operation. All subsequent operations on the collections must wait until renameCollection() completes.

Interaction with `mongodump`

A mongodump started with --oplog fails if a client issues db.collection.renameCollection() during the dump process. See mongodump.--oplog for more information.

Example

Call the db.collection.renameCollection() method on a collection object. For example:

db.rrecord.renameCollection("record")

This operation will rename the rrecord collection to record. If the target name (i.e. record) is the name of an existing collection, then the operation will fail.

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db.collection.remove

db.collection.replaceOne