$count (accumulator)

New from version 8.0.1.

Use the $count accumulator within a $group stage to return the number of documents in each group. It accepts an empty object {} as its argument.

This is different from the $count pipeline stage, which is a standalone stage that counts all documents passing through the pipeline. The $count accumulator instead counts documents within each group produced by $group.

Syntax

{ $count: {} }

Parameters

• The $count accumulator takes no arguments. It accepts an empty object {} and returns the count of documents in each group.

Example (MongoDB Shell)

The following example shows how to use the $count accumulator to count the number of products in each category.

Create sample documents

db.products.insertMany([
  { name: "Widget", category: "A" },
  { name: "Gadget", category: "A" },
  { name: "Doohickey", category: "B" },
  { name: "Thingamajig", category: "B" },
  { name: "Whatsit", category: "B" }
])

Query example

db.products.aggregate([
  { $group: { _id: "$category", count: { $count: {} } } }
])

Output

[
  { "_id": "A", "count": 2 },
  { "_id": "B", "count": 3 }
]

Window operator usage example (MongoDB Shell)

New from version 8.0.2.

The $count accumulator can also be used as a window operator in the $setWindowFields stage. In this context, it returns the number of documents in each window. You specify the operator under the output field, and optionally define the window boundaries with a window document.

Create sample documents

db.events.insertMany([
  { _id: 1, category: "A", day: 1 },
  { _id: 2, category: "A", day: 2 },
  { _id: 3, category: "A", day: 3 },
  { _id: 4, category: "B", day: 1 },
  { _id: 5, category: "B", day: 2 }
])

Query example

The following example partitions the documents by category, sorts each partition by day, and returns a running count of documents from the start of the partition through the current document.

db.events.aggregate([
  {
    $setWindowFields: {
      partitionBy: "$category",
      sortBy: { day: 1 },
      output: {
        runningCount: {
          $count: {},
          window: { documents: ["unbounded", "current"] }
        }
      }
    }
  }
])

Output

[
  { "_id": 1, "category": "A", "day": 1, "runningCount": 1 },
  { "_id": 2, "category": "A", "day": 2, "runningCount": 2 },
  { "_id": 3, "category": "A", "day": 3, "runningCount": 3 },
  { "_id": 4, "category": "B", "day": 1, "runningCount": 1 },
  { "_id": 5, "category": "B", "day": 2, "runningCount": 2 }
]

Each document is augmented with runningCount, the number of documents within its partition up to and including the current document.

Code examples

To view a code example for using the $count accumulator, choose the tab for the language that you want to use. The following examples show both accumulator usage (in $group) and window operator usage (in $setWindowFields):

Node.js

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

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

  try {
    await client.connect();

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

    // Accumulator usage: count per group
    const products = db.collection('products');
    await products.insertMany([
      { name: "Widget", category: "A" },
      { name: "Gadget", category: "A" },
      { name: "Doohickey", category: "B" },
      { name: "Thingamajig", category: "B" },
      { name: "Whatsit", category: "B" }
    ]);
    const accumulatorResult = await products.aggregate([
      { $group: { _id: "$category", count: { $count: {} } } }
    ]).toArray();
    console.log('Accumulator result:', accumulatorResult);

    // Window operator usage: running count within each partition
    const events = db.collection('events');
    await events.insertMany([
      { _id: 1, category: "A", day: 1 },
      { _id: 2, category: "A", day: 2 },
      { _id: 3, category: "A", day: 3 },
      { _id: 4, category: "B", day: 1 },
      { _id: 5, category: "B", day: 2 }
    ]);
    const windowResult = await events.aggregate([
      {
        $setWindowFields: {
          partitionBy: "$category",
          sortBy: { day: 1 },
          output: {
            runningCount: {
              $count: {},
              window: { documents: ["unbounded", "current"] }
            }
          }
        }
      }
    ]).toArray();
    console.log('Window result:', windowResult);

  } catch (error) {
    console.error('Error:', error);
  } finally {
    await client.close();
  }
}

example();

Python

from pymongo import MongoClient
from pprint import pprint

def example():
    client = None
    try:
        client = MongoClient('mongodb://<username>:<password>@<cluster-endpoint>:27017/?tls=true&tlsCAFile=global-bundle.pem&replicaSet=rs0&readPreference=secondaryPreferred&retryWrites=false')

        db = client['test']

        # Accumulator usage: count per group
        products = db['products']
        products.insert_many([
            { 'name': 'Widget', 'category': 'A' },
            { 'name': 'Gadget', 'category': 'A' },
            { 'name': 'Doohickey', 'category': 'B' },
            { 'name': 'Thingamajig', 'category': 'B' },
            { 'name': 'Whatsit', 'category': 'B' }
        ])
        accumulator_result = list(products.aggregate([
            { '$group': { '_id': '$category', 'count': { '$count': {} } } }
        ]))
        pprint(accumulator_result)

        # Window operator usage: running count within each partition
        events = db['events']
        events.insert_many([
            { '_id': 1, 'category': 'A', 'day': 1 },
            { '_id': 2, 'category': 'A', 'day': 2 },
            { '_id': 3, 'category': 'A', 'day': 3 },
            { '_id': 4, 'category': 'B', 'day': 1 },
            { '_id': 5, 'category': 'B', 'day': 2 }
        ])
        window_result = list(events.aggregate([
            {
                '$setWindowFields': {
                    'partitionBy': '$category',
                    'sortBy': { 'day': 1 },
                    'output': {
                        'runningCount': {
                            '$count': {},
                            'window': { 'documents': ['unbounded', 'current'] }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        ]))
        pprint(window_result)

    except Exception as e:
        print(f"An error occurred: {e}")

    finally:
        if client:
            client.close()

example()