MongoDB – $pop Operator

MongoDB provides different types of array update operators to update the values of the array fields in the documents and $pop operator is one of them. This operator is used to remove the first or the last item from the array.

Syntax:

{ $pop: { <field>: <-1 | 1>, ... } }

Here, <field> can specify with dot notation in embedded/nested documents or an array.

• If you pass -1 value in $pop operator, then it will remove the first item from the array.
• If you pass 1 value in $pop operator, then it will remove the last item from the array.
• If the <field> is not an array, then this operator will fail.
• If $pop operator will remove the last item from the specified field, then the field holds an empty array.
• You can use this operator with methods like update(), findAndModify(), etc., according to your requirement.

In the following examples, we are working with:

Database: GeeksforGeeks
Collection: contributor
Document: two documents that contain the details of the contributor in the form of field-value pairs.

Removing first item from the array:

In this example, we are removing the first element of the language field in the document that matches the specified condition, i.e., name: “Rohit”, by setting the value of $pop operator to -1.

db.contributor.update({name: "Rohit"}, {$pop: { language: -1}})

Removing last item from the array:

In this example, we are removing the last element of the language field in the document that matches the specified condition, i.e., name: “Sumit”, by setting the value of $pop operator to 1.

db.contributor.update({name: "Sumit"}, {$pop: {language: 1}})

Removing first item from the embedded/nested document:

In this example, we are removing the last element of the personal.semesterMarks field in the nested document by setting the value of $pop operator to -1.

db.contributor.update({name: "Sumit"},
                      {$pop: {"personal.semesterMarks": -1}})