mongoimport - Import data into Mongo DB

The mongoimport tool imports content from an Extended JSON, CSV, or TSV export created by mongoexport, or potentially, another third-party export tool.

See Human Intelligible Import/Export Formats for more in-depth usage overview, and the mongoexport document for more information regarding mongoexport, which provides the inverse “exporting” capability.

Considerations

WARNING

Avoid using mongoimport and mongoexport for full instance production backups. They do not reliably preserve all rich BSON data types, because JSON can only represent a subset of the types supported by BSON. Use mongodump and mongorestore as described in MongoDB Backup Methods for this kind of functionality.

To preserve type information, mongoexport and mongoimport uses the strict mode representation for certain types.

For example, the following insert operation in the mongo shell uses the shell mode representation for the BSON types data_date and data_numberlong:

use test
db.traffic.insert( { _id: 1, volume: NumberLong('2980000'), date: new Date() } )

The argument to data_numberlong must be quoted to avoid potential loss of accuracy.

Use mongoexport to export the data:

mongoexport --db test --collection traffic --out traffic.json

The exported data is in strict mode representation to preserve type information:

{ "_id" : 1, "volume" : { "$numberLong" : "2980000" }, "date" : { "$date" : "2014-03-13T13:47:42.483-0400" } }

Required Access

In order to connect to a mongod that enforces authorization with the --auth option, you must use the --username and --password options. The connecting user must possess, at a minimum, the readWrite role on the database into which they are importing data.

Options

Changed in version 3.0.0: mongoimport removed the --dbpath as well as related --directoryperdband --journal options. You must use mongoimport while connected to a mongod instance.

mongoimport

--help

Returns information on the options and use of mongoimport.

--verbose, -v

Increases the amount of internal reporting returned on standard output or in log files. Increase the verbosity with the -v form by including the option multiple times, (e.g. -vvvvv.)

--quiet

Runs the mongoimport in a quiet mode that attempts to limit the amount of output.

This option suppresses:

• output from database commands
• replication activity
• connection accepted events
• connection closed events

--version

Returns the mongoimport release number.

--host <hostname><:port>, -h <hostname><:port>

Default: localhost:27017

Specifies a resolvable hostname for the mongod to which to connect. By default, the mongoimportattempts to connect to a MongoDB instance running on the localhost on port number 27017.

To connect to a replica set, specify the replSetName and a seed list of set members, as in the following:

<replSetName>/<hostname1><:port>,<hostname2><:port>,<...>

You can always connect directly to a single MongoDB instance by specifying the host and port number directly.

Changed in version 3.0.0: If you use IPv6 and use the <address>:<port> format, you must enclose the portion of an address and port combination in brackets (e.g. [<address>]).

--port <port>

Default: 27017

Specifies the TCP port on which the MongoDB instance listens for client connections.

--username <username>, -u <username>

Specifies a username with which to authenticate to a MongoDB database that uses authentication. Use in conjunction with the --password and --authenticationDatabase options.

--password <password>, -p <password>

Specifies a password with which to authenticate to a MongoDB database that uses authentication. Use in conjunction with the --username and --authenticationDatabase options.

Changed in version 3.0.0: If you do not specify an argument for --password, mongoimport returns an error.

Changed in version 3.0.2: If you wish mongoimport to prompt the user for the password, pass the --username option without --password or specify an empty string as the --password value, as in --password "" .

--authenticationDatabase <dbname>

Specifies the database in which the user is created. 

--authenticationMechanism <name>

Default: SCRAM-SHA-1

Changed in version 2.6: Added support for the PLAIN and MONGODB-X509 authentication mechanisms.

Changed in version 3.0: Added support for the SCRAM-SHA-1 authentication mechanism. Changed default mechanism to SCRAM-SHA-1.

Specifies the authentication mechanism the mongoimport instance uses to authenticate to the mongod or mongos.

Value	Description
SCRAM-SHA-1	RFC 5802 standard Salted Challenge Response Authentication Mechanism using the SHA1 hash function.
MONGODB-CR	MongoDB challenge/response authentication.
MONGODB-X509	MongoDB TLS/SSL certificate authentication.
GSSAPI (Kerberos)	External authentication using Kerberos. This mechanism is available only in MongoDB Enterprise.
PLAIN (LDAP SASL)	External authentication using LDAP. You can also use PLAIN for authenticating in-database users. PLAIN transmits passwords in plain text. This mechanism is available only in MongoDB Enterprise.

--gssapiServiceName

New in version 2.6.

Specify the name of the service using GSSAPI/Kerberos. Only required if the service does not use the default name of mongodb.

This option is available only in MongoDB Enterprise.

--gssapiHostName

New in version 2.6.

Specify the hostname of a service using GSSAPI/Kerberos. Only required if the hostname of a machine does not match the hostname resolved by DNS.

This option is available only in MongoDB Enterprise.

--db <database>, -d <database>

Specifies the name of the database on which to run the mongoimport.

--collection <collection>, -c <collection>

Specifies the collection to import.

New in version 2.6: If you do not specify --collection, mongoimport takes the collection name from the input filename. MongoDB omits the extension of the file from the collection name, if the input file has an extension.

--fields <field1[,field2]>, -f <field1[,field2]>

Specify a comma separated list of field names when importing csv or tsv files that do not have field names in the first (i.e. header) line of the file.

If you attempt to include --fields when importing JSON data, mongoimport will return an error. --fields is only for csv or tsv imports.

--fieldFile <filename>

As an alternative to --fields, the --fieldFile option allows you to specify a file that holds a list of field names if your csv or tsv file does not include field names in the first line of the file (i.e. header). Place one field per line.

If you attempt to include --fieldFile when importing JSON data, mongoimport will return an error. --fieldFile is only for csv or tsv imports.

--ignoreBlanks

Ignores empty fields in csv and tsv exports. If not specified, mongoimport creates fields without values in imported documents.

If you attempt to include --ignoreBlanks when importing JSON data, mongoimport will return an error.--ignoreBlanks is only for csv or tsv imports.

--type <json|csv|tsv>

Specifies the file type to import. The default format is JSON, but it’s possible to import csv (Comma separated Values) and tsv (Tab separated values) files.

The csv parser accepts that data that complies with RFC RFC 4180. As a result, backslashes are not a valid escape character. If you use double-quotes to enclose fields in the CSV data, you must escape internal double-quote marks by prepending another double-quote.

--file <filename>

Specifies the location and name of a file containing the data to import. If you do not specify a file,mongoimport reads data from standard input (e.g. “stdin”).

--drop

Modifies the import process so that the target instance drops the collection before importing the data from the input.

--headerline

If using --type csv or --type tsv, uses the first line as field names. Otherwise, mongoimport will import the first line as a distinct document.

If you attempt to include --headerline when importing JSON data, mongoimport will return an error. --headerline is only for csv or tsv imports.

--upsert

Modifies the import process to update existing objects in the database if they match an imported object, while inserting all other objects.

If you do not specify a field or fields using the --upsertFields mongoimport will upsert on the basis of the _id field.

Depending on your MongoDB configuration, --upsert may impact your mongod‘s performance.

Changed in version 3.0.0: --upsertFields now implies --upsert. As such, you may prefer to use --upsertFields instead of --upsert.

--upsertFields <field1[,field2]>

Specifies a list of fields for the query portion of the upsert. Use this option if the _id fields in the existing documents don’t match the field in the document, but another field or field combination can uniquely identify documents as a basis for performing upsert operations.

Changed in version 3.0.0: Modifies the import process to update existing objects in the database if they match based on the specified fields, while inserting all other objects. You do not need to use --upsert with --upsertFields.

If you do not specify a field, --upsertFields will upsert on the basis of the _id field.

To ensure adequate performance, indexes should exist for this field or fields.

--stopOnError

Forces mongoimport to halt the insert operation at the first error rather than continuing the operation despite errors.

--jsonArray

Accepts the import of data expressed with multiple MongoDB documents within a single JSON array. Limited to imports of 16 MB or smaller.

Use --jsonArray in conjunction with mongoexport --jsonArray.

--maintainInsertionOrder

Default: False

If specified, mongoimport inserts the documents in the order of their appearance in the input source, otherwise mongoimport may perform the insertions in an arbitrary order.

--numInsertionWorkers int

Default: 1

New in version 3.0.0.

Specifies the number of insertion workers to run concurrently.

For large imports, increasing the number of insertion workers may increase the speed of the import.

--writeConcern <document>

Default: majority

Specifies the write concern for each write operation that mongoimport writes to the target database.

Specify the write concern as a document with w options.

--bypassDocumentValidation

Enables mongoimport to bypass document validation during the operation. This lets you insert documents that do not meet the validation requirements.

New in version 3.2.1.

Use

Simple Usage

mongoimport restores a database from a backup taken with mongoexport. Most of the arguments to mongoexport also exist for mongoimport.

In the following example, mongoimport imports the data in the JSON data from the contacts.json file into the collection contacts in the users database.

mongoimport --db users --collection contacts --file contacts.json

Import JSON to Remote Host Running with Authentication

In the following example, mongoimport imports data from the file /opt/backups/mdb1-examplenet.json into the contacts collection within the database marketing on a remote MongoDB database with authentication enabled.

mongoimport connects to the mongod instance running on the host mongodb1.example.net over port37017. It authenticates with the username user and the password pass.

mongoimport --host mongodb1.example.net --port 37017 --username user --password pass --collection contacts --db marketing --file /opt/backups/mdb1-examplenet.json

CSV Import

In the following example, mongoimport imports the csv formatted data in the/opt/backups/contacts.csv file into the collection contacts in the users database on the MongoDB instance running on the localhost port numbered 27017.

Specifying --headerline instructs mongoimport to determine the name of the fields using the first line in the CSV file.

mongoimport --db users --collection contacts --type csv --headerline --file /opt/backups/contacts.csv

mongoimport uses the input file name, without the extension, as the collection name if -c or --collection is unspecified. The following example is therefore equivalent:

mongoimport --db users --type csv --headerline --file /opt/backups/contacts.csv

Use the “--ignoreBlanks” option to ignore blank fields. For CSV and TSV imports, this option provides the desired functionality in most cases because it avoids inserting fields with null values into your collection.