Use an Editor for Commands

Start a New Editing Session

Enter edit by itself to start a new editing session.

edit

If you start an editing session without any arguments, the editor opens with the last edit loaded. See the example, Editing a Command.

Edit a Variable

If an argument exists in the console namespace, you can use edit to update it.

var albums = [ ];
edit albums

• The variable albums is set in the first line.

• The second line opens the external editor to edit the value of albums.

Edit a Statement

To edit a statement in the external editor, invoke edit with a statement such as db.collection.insertMany().

edit db.digits.insertMany( [] )

After editing db.music.insertMany( [] ) and exiting the external editor, the mongosh console might look like this:

prompt> db.digits.insertMany([{ "zero": 0 }, { "one": 1 }, { "two": 2 }])

When you exit the external editor, the statement is copied to the console input line, ready to run. It does not run automatically. Press <enter> to run the statement or <ctrl> + c to cancel it.

Set the External Editor

If the EDITOR environment variable is set in the shell running mongosh, the edit command will use that editor.

If the mongosh editor property is also set, mongosh will use that program instead. The editor property overrides the EDITOR environment variable.

export EDITOR=vi

process.env.EDITOR = 'nano'

config.set( "editor", "nano" )

Editing a Command

Use edit to start an editing session. If the editor was already used in the current console session, the editor opens the last edit.

The following statement has a syntax error. The highlighted line is missing a comma:

// WARNING: This code contains an error
db.users.insertMany( [
   { "name": "Joey", "group": "sales" }
   { "name": "Marie", "group": "sales" },
   { "name": "Elton", "group": "accounting" },
   { "name": "Paola", "group": "marketing" }
] )

To set up the example:

1. Copy the example code.

2. Enter edit to start an editing session.

3. Paste the example code into the editor.

4. Exit the editor.

5. Press enter.

When you exit the editor, it copies the example code to the command line. mongosh returns an error when the code runs.

To reload the example code, enter edit without any arguments.

// WARNING: This code contains an error
db.users.insertMany([{
        "name": "Joey",
        "group": "sales"
   } {
        "name": "Marie",
        "group": "sales"
   },
   {
        "name": "Elton",
        "group": "accounting"
   },
   {
        "name": "Paola",
        "group": "marketing"
   }
])

The code is reformatted for easier editing. In this case the missing comma in the highlighted line causes the documents to be misaligned.

Using Visual Studio as an External Editor

Visual Studio requires a special parameter to work as an external editor. Use --wait with Visual Studio.

Set an environment variable:

export EDITOR="/usr/local/bin/code --wait"

You can also set the editor with config.set(). If Visual Studio is in your PATH, open mongosh and run:

config.set("editor", "code --wait")

If you use Visual Studio, you can also use the MongoDB VS Code Extension.

Unset the External Editor

Unset the editor variable in mongosh:

config.set("editor", null)

If the EDITOR environment is configured, unset it as well. From mongosh, run:

process.env.EDITOR = ''

If you unset EDITOR using process.env the change will not persist after exiting mongosh. To make the change persistent, unset EDITOR from your shell.

Using the Built-In Editor

Start the editor:

.editor

mongosh enters editor mode. Enter your code:

// Entering editor mode (^D to finish, ^C to cancel)
var albums =
    [
       { "artist": "Beatles", "album": "Revolver" },
       { "artist": "The Monkees", "album": "Head"}
    ]
db.music.insertMany( albums )

To leave the editor,

• Press <ctrl> + d to exit and run your function

• Press <ctrl> + c to exit without running your function

Objects which are declared using .editor, like albums in this example, are added to the global scope. They are available after .editor closes.