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geoNear

Definition

geoNear

Returns documents in order of proximity to a specified point, from the nearest to farthest. geoNear requires a geospatial index.

The geoNear command accepts a document that contains the following fields. Specify all distances in the same units as the document coordinate system:

Field Type Description
geoNear string The collection to query.
near GeoJSON point or legacy coordinate pair

The point for which to find the closest documents.

If using a 2dsphere index, you can specify the point as either a GeoJSON point or legacy coordinate pair.

If using a 2d index, specify the point as a legacy coordinate pair.

spherical boolean

Required if using a 2dsphere index. Determines how MongoDB calculates the distance. The default value is false.

If true, then MongoDB uses spherical geometry to calculate distances in meters if the specified (near) point is a GeoJSON point and in radians if the specified (near) point is a legacy coordinate pair.

If false, then MongoDB uses 2d planar geometry to calculate distance between points.

If using a 2dsphere index, spherical must be true.

limit number Optional. The maximum number of documents to return. The default value is 100. See also the num option.
num number Optional. The num option provides the same function as the limit option. Both define the maximum number of documents to return. If both options are included, the num value overrides the limit value.
minDistance number

Optional. The minimum distance from the center point that the documents must be. MongoDB filters the results to those documents that are at least the specified distance from the center point.

Only available for use with 2dsphere index.

Specify the distance in meters if the specified point is GeoJSON and in radians if the specified point is legacy coordinate pairs.

New in version 2.6.

maxDistance number

Optional. The maximum distance from the center point that the documents can be. MongoDB limits the results to those documents that fall within the specified distance from the center point.

Specify the distance in meters if the specified point is GeoJSON and in radians if the specified point is legacy coordinate pairs.

query document

Optional. Limits the results to the documents that match the query. The query syntax is the usual MongoDB read operation query syntax.

You cannot specify a $near predicate in the query field of the geoNear command.

distanceMultiplier number Optional. The factor to multiply all distances returned by the query. For example, use the distanceMultiplier to convert radians, as returned by a spherical query, to kilometers by multiplying by the radius of the Earth.
includeLocs boolean Optional. If this is true, the query returns the location of the matching documents in the results. The default is false. This option is useful when a location field contains multiple locations. To specify a field within an embedded document, use dot notation.
uniqueDocs boolean

Optional. If this value is true, the query returns a matching document once, even if more than one of the document’s location fields match the query.

Deprecated since version 2.6: Geospatial queries no longer return duplicate results. The $uniqueDocs operator has no impact on results.

readConcern document

Optional. Specifies the read concern.

The readConcern option has the following syntax:

Changed in version 3.6.

readConcern: { level: <value> }

Possible read concern levels are:

For more formation on the read concern levels, see Read Concern Levels.

For "local" (default) or "majority" read concern level, you can specify the afterClusterTime option to have the read operation return data that meets the level requirement and the specified after cluster time requirement. For more information, see Read Operations and Causally Consistent Sessions.

Considerations

geoNear requires a geospatial index.

However, the geoNear command requires that a collection have at most only one 2dsphere and/or only one 2d index .

Views do not support geoNear operations (i.e. geoNear command and $geoNear pipeline stage)

You cannot specify a $near predicate in the query field of the geoNear command.

Command Syntax

2dsphere Index

If using a 2dsphere index, you can specify either a GeoJSON point or a legacy coordinate pair for the near value.

You must include spherical: true in the syntax.

With spherical: true, if you specify a GeoJSON point, MongoDB uses meters as the unit of measurement:

db.runCommand( {
   geoNear: <collection> ,
   near: { type: "Point" , coordinates: [ <coordinates> ] } ,
   spherical: true,
   ...
} )

With spherical: true, if you specify a legacy coordinate pair, MongoDB uses radians as the unit of measurement:

db.runCommand( {
   geoNear: <collection> ,
   near: [ <coordinates> ],
   spherical: true,
   ...
} )

2d Index

To query a 2d index, use the following syntax:

db.runCommand( {
   geoNear: <collection>,
   near : [ <coordinates> ],
   ...
} )

If you specify spherical: true, MongoDB uses spherical geometry to calculate distances in radians. Otherwise, MongoDB uses planar geometry to calculate distances between points.

Behavior

geoNear sorts documents by distance. If you also include a sort() for the query, sort() re-orders the matching documents, effectively overriding the sort operation already performed by geoNear. When using sort() with geospatial queries, consider using $geoWithin operator, which does not sort documents, instead of geoNear.

Because geoNear orders the documents from nearest to farthest, the minDistance field effectively skips over the first n documents where n is determined by the distance requirement.

The geoNear command provides an alternative to the $near operator. In addition to the functionality of $near, geoNear returns additional diagnostic information.

In a sharded cluster, the geoNear command may return orphaned documents. To avoid this, consider using the $geoNear aggregation stage as an alternative.

Examples

The following examples run the geoNear command on the collection places that has a 2dsphere index.

Specify a Query Condition

The following geoNear command queries for documents whose category equals "public" and returns the matching documents in order of nearest to farthest to the specified point:

db.runCommand(
   {
     geoNear: "places",
     near: { type: "Point", coordinates: [ -73.9667, 40.78 ] },
     spherical: true,
     query: { category: "public" }
   }
)

The operation returns the following output, the documents in the results from nearest to farthest:

{
  "results" : [
     {
       "dis" : 0,
       "obj" : {
          "_id" : 2,
          "location" : { "type" : "Point", "coordinates" : [ -73.9667, 40.78 ] },
          "name" : "Central Park",
          "category" : "public"
       }
     },
     {
       "dis" : 3245.988787957091,
       "obj" : {
          "_id" : 3,
          "location" : { "type" : "Point", "coordinates" : [ -73.9836, 40.7538 ] },
          "name" : "Bryant Park",
          "category" : "public"
       }
     },
     {
       "dis" : 7106.506152782733,
       "obj" : {
          "_id" : 4,
          "location" : { "type" : "Point", "coordinates" : [ -73.9928, 40.7193 ] },
          "name" : "Sara D. Roosevelt Park",
          "category" : "public"
       }
     },

  ],
  "stats" : {
     "nscanned" : NumberLong(47),
     "objectsLoaded" : NumberLong(47),
     "avgDistance" : 3450.8316469132747,
     "maxDistance" : 7106.506152782733,
     "time" : 4
  },
  "ok" : 1
}

Specify a minDistance and maxDistance

The following example specifies a minDistance of 3000 meters and maxDistance of 7000 meters:

db.runCommand(
   {
     geoNear: "places",
     near: { type: "Point", coordinates: [ -73.9667, 40.78 ] },
     spherical: true,
     query: { category: "public" },
     minDistance: 3000,
     maxDistance: 7000
   }
)

The operation returns the following output:

{
  "results" : [
     {
       "dis" : 3245.988787957091,
       "obj" : {
          "_id" : 3,
          "location" : { "type" : "Point", "coordinates" : [ -73.9836, 40.7538 ] },
          "name" : "Bryant Park",
          "category" : "public"
       }
     }
  ],
  "stats" : {
      "nscanned" : NumberLong(11),
      "objectsLoaded" : NumberLong(11),
      "avgDistance" : 3245.988787957091,
      "maxDistance" : 3245.988787957091,
      "time" : 0
  },
  "ok" : 1
}

Override Default Read Concern

To override the default read concern level of "local", use the readConcern option.

The following operation on a replica set specifies a Read Concern of "majority" to read the most recent copy of the data confirmed as having been written to a majority of the nodes.

Note

db.runCommand(
   {
      geoNear: "places",
      near: { type: "Point", coordinates: [ -73.9667, 40.78 ] },
      spherical: true,
      query: { category: "public" },
      readConcern: { level: "majority" }
   }
)

To ensure that a single thread can read its own writes, use "majority" read concern and "majority" write concern against the primary of the replica set.

Output

The geoNear command returns a document with the following fields:

geoNear.results

An array with the results of the geoNear command, sorted by distance with the nearest result listed first and farthest last.

geoNear.results[n].dis

For each document in the results, the distance from the coordinates defined in the geoNear command.

geoNear.results[n].obj

The document from the collection.

geoNear.stats

An object with statistics about the query used to return the results of the geoNear search.

geoNear.stats.nscanned

The total number of index entries scanned during the database operation.

geoNear.stats.objectsLoaded

The total number of documents read from disk during the database operation.

geoNear.stats.avgDistance

The average distance between the coordinates defined in the geoNear command and coordinates of the documents returned as results.

geoNear.stats.maxDistance

The maximum distance between the coordinates defined in the geoNear command and coordinates of the documents returned as results.

geoNear.stats.time

The execution time of the database operation, in milliseconds.

geoNear.ok

A value of 1 indicates the geoNear search succeeded. A value of 0 indicates an error.