Running a Mongo Shell Script From Within A Larger Bash Script

[EDIT May 2023: The post below was written for the legacy 'mongo' shell but has since been tested with the modern 'mongosh' shell, which behaves the same with no issues.]

If you have a Bash script that amongst other things needs to execute a set of multiple Mongo Shell commands together, there are a number of approaches that can be taken. This blog post contains nothing revelatory, but hopefully at least captures examples of these approaches in one single place for easy future reference. There are many situations where this is required, for example:

• From within a Docker container image’s Entrypoint, running a Bash script which includes a section of Mongo Shell JavaScript code to configure a MongoDB replica-set, using rs.initiate() and associated commands.
• From within a Continuous Integration process, running a Bash script which installs a MongoDB environment in a host Operating System (OS) and then populates the new MongoDB database with some sample data, using a set of Mongo Shell CRUD commands
• From within a host system’s monitoring Bash script, which, in addition to gathering some host OS metrics, invokes a set of MongoDB’s server status and statistics commands to also capture database metrics.

The rest of this blog post shows some of the different approaches that can be taken to execute a block of Mongo Shell JavaScript code from within a larger Bash script. In these specific examples a trivial block of JavaScript code will insert 2 records into a ‘persons’ database collection, then query and print both the records belonging to the collection and then remove the 2 records from the collection.

It is worth noting that there is a difference in some of Mongo Shell’s behaviour when running a block of JavaScript code in the Mongo Shell’s Scripted mode rather than its Interactive mode, including the inability to run the Shell Helper commands (e.g. unable to utilise use db, show collections, etc.).

1. EXTERNAL SCRIPT FILE

This option requires executing a separate file which contains the block of JavaScript code. First create a new JavaScript file called test.js with the following content:

db = db.getSiblingDB('testdb');

db.persons.insertOne({'firstname': 'Sarah', 'lastname': 'Smith'});

db.persons.insertOne({'firstname': 'John', 'lastname': 'Jones'});

db.persons.find({}, {'_id': 0, 'firstname': 1}).forEach(printjson);

print(db.persons.remove({}));

Then create, make executable, and run a new Bash .sh script file with the following content (this will run the Mongo Shell in Scripted mode):

#!/bin/bash

echo "Doing some Bash script work first"

mongo --quiet ./test.js

echo "Doing some more Bash script work afterwards"

2. SINGLE-LINE EVAL SCRIPT

This option involves executing the Mongo Shell with its eval option, passing in a single line containing each of the JavaScript commands separated by a semicolon. Create, make executable, and run a new Bash .sh script file with the following content (this will run the Mongo Shell in Scripted mode):

#!/bin/bash

echo "Doing some Bash script work first"

mongo --quiet --eval "db = db.getSiblingDB('testdb'); db.persons.insertOne({'firstname': 'Sarah', 'lastname': 'Smith'}); db.persons.insertOne({'firstname': 'John', 'lastname': 'Jones'}); db.persons.find({}, {'_id': 0, 'firstname': 1}).forEach(printjson); print(db.persons.remove({}));"

echo "Doing some more Bash script work afterwards"

Note: Depending on your desktop resolution, your browser may show the Mongo Shell command wrapping onto multiple lines. However, it is actually just a single line, which can be proved by copying the line into a text editor which has its ‘text wrapping’ feature disabled.

3. MULTI-LINE EVAL SCRIPT

This option involves executing the Mongo Shell with its eval option, passing in a block of multiple lines of JavaScript code, where the start and end of the code block are delimited by single or double quotes. Create, make executable, and run a new Bash .sh script file with the following content (this will run the Mongo Shell in Scripted mode):

#!/bin/bash

echo "Doing some Bash script work first"

mongo --quiet --eval "

    db = db.getSiblingDB('testdb');

    db.persons.insertOne({'firstname': 'Sarah', 'lastname': 'Smith'});

    db.persons.insertOne({'firstname': 'John', 'lastname': 'Jones'});

    db.persons.find({}, {'_id': 0, 'firstname': 1}).forEach(printjson);

    print(db.persons.remove({}));

"

echo "Doing some more Bash script work afterwards"

Note: Care has to be taken to ensure that any quotes used within the JavaScript code block are single-quotes, if the Mongo Shell’s eval delimiters are double-quotes, or vice versa.

4. MULTI-LINE SCRIPT WITH HERE-DOC

This option involves redirecting the content of a block of JavaScript multi-line code into the standard input (‘stdin’) stream of the Mongo Shell program, using a Bash Here-Document. Create, make executable, and run a new Bash .sh script file with the following content (unlike the other approaches this will run the Mongo Shell in Interactive mode):

#!/bin/bash

echo "Doing some Bash script work first"

mongo --quiet <<EOF

    show dbs;

    db = db.getSiblingDB("testdb");

    db.persons.insertOne({'firstname': 'Sarah', 'lastname': 'Smith'});

    db.persons.insertOne({'firstname': 'John', 'lastname': 'Jones'});

    db.persons.find({}, {'_id': 0, 'firstname': 1}).forEach(printjson);

    print(db.persons.remove({}));

EOF

echo "Doing some more Bash script work afterwards"

In this case, because the Mongo Shell is run in Interactive mode, the output of the script will be more verbose. Also, by virtue of running in Interactive mode, the Shell Helpers commands can now be used within the JavaScript code. The block of code above contains the additional line show dbs; as the first line, to illustrate this. However, don’t take this example as a recommendation to use Shell Helpers in your scripts. Generally you should avoid using Shell Helpers in any of your Mongo Shell scripts, regardless of which approach you use.

Also, because the Mongo Shell eval option is not being used, the JavaScript code can contain a mix of both single and double quotes, as illustrated by the modified line of code db = db.getSiblingDB("testdb"); shown above, which utilises double-quotes.

Another Observation

It is worth noting that for all of these four methods, apart from the External Script File method, you can reference Bash environment variables inline within the Mongo Shell JavaScript code (as long as double-quotes deliminate the code for the eval methods, rather than single-quotes). For example, from a Bash terminal if you have set a variable with the name of the database to write to...

export DBNAME=testdb

... you can then use the value of this environment variable from within the inline Mongo Shell JavaScript...

db = db.getSiblingDB('${DBNAME}');

...to factor out the database name. At face value this may not seem particularly powerful until you realise that many build frameworks (e.g. Docker Compose, Ansible, etc.) allow you to declare environment variables within configuration settings before invoking Bash scripts, to factor out environment specific settings.

One bit of caution though, if you are using the MongoDB query operators, they include an ampersand in the syntax (e.g. '&gt', '&exists') which will need to be escaped in these scripts (e.g. '\&gt', '\&exists'). Otherwise Bash will treat each ampersand as a special control character which, in this case, will likely result in being replaced with some empty text.

Summary

The following table summarises the main differences between the four approaches to running a JavaScript block of code with the Mongo Shell, from within a larger Bash script:

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