Spring Data MongoDB: Accessing and updating sub documents - spring

Question

First experiments with Spring Data and MongoDB were great. Now I've got the following structure (simplified):
public class Letter {
#Id
private String id;
private List<Section> sections;
}
public class Section {
private String id;
private String content;
}
Loading and saving entire Letter objects/documents works like a charm. (I use ObjectId to generate unique IDs for the Section.id field.)
Letter letter1 = mongoTemplate.findById(id, Letter.class)
mongoTemplate.insert(letter2);
mongoTemplate.save(letter3);
As documents are big (200K) and sometimes only sub-parts are needed by the application: Is there a possibility to query for a sub-document (section), modify and save it?
I'd like to implement a method like
Section s = findLetterSection(letterId, sectionId);
s.setText("blubb");
replaceLetterSection(letterId, sectionId, s);
And of course methods like:
addLetterSection(letterId, s); // add after last section
insertLetterSection(letterId, sectionId, s); // insert before given section
deleteLetterSection(letterId, sectionId); // delete given section
I see that the last three methods are somewhat "strange", i.e. loading the entire document, modifying the collection and saving it again may be the better approach from an object-oriented point of view; but the first use case ("navigating" to a sub-document/sub-object and working in the scope of this object) seems natural.
I think MongoDB can update sub-documents, but can SpringData be used for object mapping? Thanks for any pointers.

Answer 1

I figured out the following approach for slicing and loading only one subobject. Does it seem ok? I am aware of problems with concurrent modifications.
Query query1 = Query.query(Criteria.where("_id").is(instance));
query1.fields().include("sections._id");
LetterInstance letter1 = mongoTemplate.findOne(query1, LetterInstance.class);
LetterSection emptySection = letter1.findSectionById(sectionId);
int index = letter1.getSections().indexOf(emptySection);
Query query2 = Query.query(Criteria.where("_id").is(instance));
query2.fields().include("sections").slice("sections", index, 1);
LetterInstance letter2 = mongoTemplate.findOne(query2, LetterInstance.class);
LetterSection section = letter2.getSections().get(0);
This is an alternative solution loading all sections, but omitting the other (large) fields.
Query query = Query.query(Criteria.where("_id").is(instance));
query.fields().include("sections");
LetterInstance letter = mongoTemplate.findOne(query, LetterInstance.class);
LetterSection section = letter.findSectionById(sectionId);
This is the code I use for storing only a single collection element:
MongoConverter converter = mongoTemplate.getConverter();
DBObject newSectionRec = (DBObject)converter.convertToMongoType(newSection);
Query query = Query.query(Criteria.where("_id").is(instance).and("sections._id").is(new ObjectId(newSection.getSectionId())));
Update update = new Update().set("sections.$", newSectionRec);
mongoTemplate.updateFirst(query, update, LetterInstance.class);
It is nice to see how Spring Data can be used with "partial results" from MongoDB.
Any comments highly appreciated!

Answer 2

I think Matthias Wuttke's answer is great, for anyone looking for a generic version of his answer see code below:
#Service
public class MongoUtils {
#Autowired
private MongoTemplate mongo;
public <D, N extends Domain> N findNestedDocument(Class<D> docClass, String collectionName, UUID outerId, UUID innerId,
Function<D, List<N>> collectionGetter) {
// get index of subdocument in array
Query query = new Query(Criteria.where("_id").is(outerId).and(collectionName + "._id").is(innerId));
query.fields().include(collectionName + "._id");
D obj = mongo.findOne(query, docClass);
if (obj == null) {
return null;
}
List<UUID> itemIds = collectionGetter.apply(obj).stream().map(N::getId).collect(Collectors.toList());
int index = itemIds.indexOf(innerId);
if (index == -1) {
return null;
}
// retrieve subdocument at index using slice operator
Query query2 = new Query(Criteria.where("_id").is(outerId).and(collectionName + "._id").is(innerId));
query2.fields().include(collectionName).slice(collectionName, index, 1);
D obj2 = mongo.findOne(query2, docClass);
if (obj2 == null) {
return null;
}
return collectionGetter.apply(obj2).get(0);
}
public void removeNestedDocument(UUID outerId, UUID innerId, String collectionName, Class<?> outerClass) {
Update update = new Update();
update.pull(collectionName, new Query(Criteria.where("_id").is(innerId)));
mongo.updateFirst(new Query(Criteria.where("_id").is(outerId)), update, outerClass);
}
}
This could for example be called using
mongoUtils.findNestedDocument(Shop.class, "items", shopId, itemId, Shop::getItems);
mongoUtils.removeNestedDocument(shopId, itemId, "items", Shop.class);
The Domain interface looks like this:
public interface Domain {
UUID getId();
}
Notice: If the nested document's constructor contains elements with primitive datatype, it is important for the nested document to have a default (empty) constructor, which may be protected, in order for the class to be instantiatable with null arguments.

Answer 3

Solution
Thats my solution for this problem:
The object should be updated
#Getter
#Setter
#Document(collection = "projectchild")
public class ProjectChild {
#Id
private String _id;
private String name;
private String code;
#Field("desc")
private String description;
private String startDate;
private String endDate;
#Field("cost")
private long estimatedCost;
private List<String> countryList;
private List<Task> tasks;
#Version
private Long version;
}
Coding the Solution
public Mono<ProjectChild> UpdateCritTemplChild(
String id, String idch, String ownername) {
Query query = new Query();
query.addCriteria(Criteria.where("_id")
.is(id)); // find the parent
query.addCriteria(Criteria.where("tasks._id")
.is(idch)); // find the child which will be changed
Update update = new Update();
update.set("tasks.$.ownername", ownername); // change the field inside the child that must be updated
return template
// findAndModify:
// Find/modify/get the "new object" from a single operation.
.findAndModify(
query, update,
new FindAndModifyOptions().returnNew(true), ProjectChild.class
)
;
}