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Generate Test Data

This tutorial describes how to quickly generate test data as needed to test basic MongoDB operations.

Insert Multiple Documents Using a For Loop

1

Insert new documents into the testData collection.

From the mongo shell, use the for loop. If the testData collection does not exist, MongoDB will implicitly create the collection.

for (var i = 1; i <= 25; i++) {
   db.testData.insert( { x : i } )
}
2

Query the collection.

Use find() to query the collection:

db.testData.find()

The mongo shell displays the first 20 documents in the collection. Your ObjectId values will be different:

{ "_id" : ObjectId("53d7be30242b692a1138ac7d"), "x" : 1 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("53d7be30242b692a1138ac7e"), "x" : 2 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("53d7be30242b692a1138ac7f"), "x" : 3 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("53d7be30242b692a1138ac80"), "x" : 4 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("53d7be30242b692a1138ac81"), "x" : 5 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("53d7be30242b692a1138ac82"), "x" : 6 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("53d7be30242b692a1138ac83"), "x" : 7 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("53d7be30242b692a1138ac84"), "x" : 8 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("53d7be30242b692a1138ac85"), "x" : 9 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("53d7be30242b692a1138ac86"), "x" : 10 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("53d7be30242b692a1138ac87"), "x" : 11 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("53d7be30242b692a1138ac88"), "x" : 12 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("53d7be30242b692a1138ac89"), "x" : 13 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("53d7be30242b692a1138ac8a"), "x" : 14 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("53d7be30242b692a1138ac8b"), "x" : 15 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("53d7be30242b692a1138ac8c"), "x" : 16 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("53d7be30242b692a1138ac8d"), "x" : 17 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("53d7be30242b692a1138ac8e"), "x" : 18 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("53d7be30242b692a1138ac8f"), "x" : 19 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("53d7be30242b692a1138ac90"), "x" : 20 }
Type "it" for more
3

Iterate through the cursor.

The find() method returns a cursor. To iterate the cursor and return more documents, type it in the mongo shell. The shell will exhaust the cursor and return these documents:

{ "_id" : ObjectId("53d7be30242b692a1138ac91"), "x" : 21 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("53d7be30242b692a1138ac92"), "x" : 22 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("53d7be30242b692a1138ac93"), "x" : 23 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("53d7be30242b692a1138ac94"), "x" : 24 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("53d7be30242b692a1138ac95"), "x" : 25 }

Insert Multiple Documents with a mongo Shell Function

You can create a JavaScript function in your shell session to generate the above data. The insertData() JavaScript function that follows creates new data for use in testing or training by either creating a new collection or appending data to an existing collection:

function insertData(dbName, colName, num) {

  var col = db.getSiblingDB(dbName).getCollection(colName);

  for (i = 0; i < num; i++) {
    col.insert({x:i});
  }

  print(col.count());

}

The insertData() function takes three parameters: a database, a new or existing collection, and the number of documents to create. The function creates documents with an x field set to an incremented integer, as in the following example documents:

{ "_id" : ObjectId("51a4da9b292904caffcff6eb"), "x" : 0 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("51a4da9b292904caffcff6ec"), "x" : 1 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("51a4da9b292904caffcff6ed"), "x" : 2 }

Store the function in your .mongorc.js file. The mongo shell loads and parses the .mongorc.js file on startup so your function is available every time you start a session.

Example

Specify database name, collection name, and the number of documents to insert as arguments to insertData().

insertData("test", "testData", 400)

This operation inserts 400 documents into the testData collection in the test database. If the collection and database do not exist, MongoDB creates them implicitly before inserting documents.