$ifNull

The $ifNull operator is used to return a specified value if the input expression evaluates to null or undefined. This operator can be useful in scenarios where you want to provide a default value or handle null/undefined cases.

Parameters

• expression: The expression to evaluate.

• replacement: The value to return if the <expression> evaluates to null or undefined.

Example (MongoDB Shell)

The following example demonstrates the usage of the $ifNull operator to provide a default value when the name field is null or undefined.

Create sample documents

db.users.insertMany([
  { _id: 1, name: "John" },
  { _id: 2, name: null },
  { _id: 3 }
]);

Query example

db.users.aggregate([
  {
    $project: {
      _id: 1,
      name: { $ifNull: ["$name", "No Name"] }
    }
  }
]);

Output

[
  { "_id": 1, "name": "John" },
  { "_id": 2, "name": "No Name" },
  { "_id": 3, "name": "No Name" }
]

Code examples

To view a code example for using the $ifNull command, choose the tab for the language that you want to use:

Node.js

const { MongoClient } = require('mongodb');

async function example() {
  const client = await MongoClient.connect('mongodb://<username>:<password>@<cluster-endpoint>:27017/?tls=true&tlsCAFile=global-bundle.pem&replicaSet=rs0&readPreference=secondaryPreferred&retryWrites=false');

  const db = client.db('test');

  const collection = db.collection('users');

  const pipeline = [
    {
      $project: {
        _id: 1,
        name: { $ifNull: ["$name", "No Name"] }
      }
    }
  ];

  const cursor = await collection.aggregate(pipeline);

  await cursor.forEach(doc => {
    console.log(doc);
  });

  await client.close();

}

example();

Python

from pymongo import MongoClient

def example():
    client = MongoClient('mongodb://<username>:<password>@<cluster-endpoint>:27017/?tls=true&tlsCAFile=global-bundle.pem&replicaSet=rs0&readPreference=secondaryPreferred&retryWrites=false')
    
    db = client.test
    collection = db.users

    pipeline = [
        {
            "$project": {
                "_id": 1,
                "name": { "$ifNull": ["$name", "No Name"] }
            }
        }
    ]

    result = collection.aggregate(pipeline)

    for doc in result:
        print(doc)

    client.close()

example()