Atlas Mongo DB - Sub Phrase title search

Question

Im new to Mongo and would like some help on how to do a phrase search on Atlas Mongo. I have tried doing a title search from the out of the box movies collection using the "sample-mflix" database.

export default async (req, res) => {
    
  try {
    const client = await clientPromise;
    const db = client.db("sample_mflix");

    //const query = { title: "A Year Along the Abandoned Road"} // this works

    const query =  {$text:{$search:"\"A Year \""}} // this produces unexpected results

    const options = {
      // sort returned documents in ascending order by title (A->Z)
      sort: { title: 1 },
      // Include only the `title` and `imdb` fields in each returned document
      projection: { _id: 0, title: 1, imdb: 1 },
    };


    const movies = await db
        .collection("movies")
        .find(query, options)
         //.sort({ metacritic: -1 })
         //.limit(100)
        .toArray();

    res.json(movies);
} catch (e) {
    console.error(e);
}
}

Using the exact phrase works for title (eg "A Year Along the Abandoned Road"), but say if I wish to search for "A year". How can I return the same result(s) that just shows "A Year" in the title?

I tried query = {$text:{$search:""A Year ""}}, but this returned many results that were incorrect. I have checked the indexes on Atlas and it seems this is already indexed : (cast_text_fullplot_text_genres_text_title_text). I used https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/search-text-in-mongodb/ as a reference but this didnt seem work in my case.

Answer 1

You have an extra space in your $search criteria.

I think what you meant was:

const query = {$text:{$search:"\"A Year\""}} //< Note the \ straight after the word Year (no spaces after)
/* Returns:
'A Year'
'A Year.'
'A Year ago.'
'A Year to remember.' 
*/

However you mentioned that:

but say if I wish to search for "A year". How can I return the same result(s) that just shows "A Year" in the title?

Then you will need to pass in the $caseSensitive option and set it to false so that it searches for uppercase and lowercase (case ignored):

const query = {$text:{$search:"\"A Year\"", $caseSensitive: false}};

/* Returns:
'A Year'
'a Year.'
'a year ago.'
'A year to remember.' 
*/