Querying data

The first thing you'll want to do with your data is query it. To do so, you will need to start by connecting to your database.

Connecting to your database

Your server is already set up and connected to your database. It used the connection string from your .env file to connect to it.

If you want to look at what the server is doing, you can look at the server/db/conn.mjs file.

const uri = process.env.ATLAS_URI;
// Create a MongoClient that will manage the connection to the database.
const client = new MongoClient(uri);
await client.connect();

await client.db("admin").command({ ping: 1 });
console.log("Pinged your deployment. You successfully connected to MongoDB!");
const collection = client.db("sample_mflix").collection("embedded_movies");

This code takes your connection string and creates a MongoClient object. This object is used to connect to your database.

It also pings the database to make sure you are connected. If you are connected, you will see the message Pinged your deployment. You successfully connected to MongoDB! in your console.

Finally, it declares a collection called collection that you will use to query your data.

Querying your data

The first thing we'll do is query the data using a find method. This method will return all the documents in your collection matching the query.

In your CodeSanbox, open the file server/controllers/movies.mjs, and look for the method find.

This function will return the data from the database. It is currently returning an empty array.

The search term is passed as a parameter to the function. You can access it using searchTerm.

Now go to the MongoDB documentation and find out how to query your data using the find method.

You should limit the search results to 20 and only return the required fields.

Once you have the code, add it to your CodeSanbox.

Answer

  async find(searchTerm) {
    const movies = await collection
      .find({ title: searchTerm }, {
        title: 1,
        year: 1,
        "imdb.rating": 1,
        fullplot: 1,
        poster: 1,
        released: 1,
        genres: 1
      })
      .limit(20)
      .toArray();

    return movies;
  }

Test it out -- and see the limitations

You can now enter data in the search box and search for movies. Try searching for The Terminator or Coraline. Those should return a movie.

Now try a more broad search like Terminator. You should see an empty array.

This is because the find method is looking for an exact match. If you want to search for a partial match, you will need to use a different method.