How to limit mongo query in python

Question

I am trying to retrieve data from mongodb with python. My db contains lots of data. So I want to limit the data while retrieving. I tried

import datetime
from pymongo import Connection
connection = Connection('localhost',27017)
db = connection['MyWork']


db_data = db.myusers.find().limit(2)
#db_data = db.myusers.find()[0:2]
print db_data
print db_data.count()
print db_data[0]
print db_data[1]
print db_data[2]

But I am getting more than two documents when I tried above. I am using pymongo driver. How to limit the values

<pymongo.cursor.Cursor object at 0x000000000267D518>
3
{u'age': 24.0, u'_id': ObjectId('552b6e90aad3e2d909d5fb28'), u'place': u'Ravipadu', u'name': u'Shiva'}
{u'age': 28.0, u'_id': ObjectId('552b6eabaad3e2d909d5fb29'), u'place': u'Rajahmundry', u'name': u'Anil'}
{u'age': 30.0, u'_id': ObjectId('552b6ec1aad3e2d909d5fb2a'), u'place': u'Manchili', u'name': u'Kishore'}

Have you tried [**`db.myusers.find()[0:2]`**](http://api.mongodb.org/python/current/api/pymongo/cursor.html#pymongo.cursor.Cursor.__getitem__)? This will return this cursor with a limit of 2 and skip of 0 applied. — chridam, Apr 13 '15 at 11:52
@philshem, I have gone through that link dear.But i din't get the solution. — Mulagala, Apr 13 '15 at 11:55
Please post more code. `limit` is supposed to work in this way. There might be problem in somewhere else. — taskinoor, Apr 13 '15 at 12:02

score 56 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:17

56

As specified in this question, indexed access will ignore the limit. And count() does not obey limit or skip by default as explained the manual. You can pass with_limit_and_skip=True to make count() work with limit.

print db_data.count(with_limit_and_skip=True)

Or you can iterate the cursor to see limit in effect.

for data in db.myusers.find().limit(2):
    print data

edited May 23 '17 at 12:17

Community

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answered Apr 13 '15 at 12:13

taskinoor

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Does limit return a list or a generator/cursor? – jtlz2 Oct 22 '21 at 12:51

score 10 · Answer 2 · edited Aug 05 '19 at 12:05

10

db.myusers.find(limit=2)

If you want to apply some condition, you can use db.myusers.find({query}, limit=2) and to count the number of results, use db.myusers.find({query}, limit=2).count()

edited Aug 05 '19 at 12:05

Ruben Helsloot

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answered Aug 05 '19 at 10:55

Jyothsna Gadde

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How to limit mongo query in python

2 Answers2