JSON at Work

Chapter 9. JSON and MongoDB

MongoDB is a NoSQL database that enables developers to persist data in document form. This document-based approach works well with JSON, which is also document-oriented. The MongoDB data model is hierarchical, and supports rich data types similar to those we’ve seen in typical JSON documents. Just like JSON documents, MongoDB documents integrate well with Object-Oriented platforms because documents are compatible with Objects, so developers can move data in/out of the database with little or no extra mapping logic. This approach is intuitive to developers and reduces development effort needed to access the database.

In this chapter, we’ll show how to do the following:

• Import a JSON document into MongoDB

• Perform core CRUD operations with MongoDB

• Export MongoDB data to a JSON document

• Access MongoDB as a Mock/Stub RESTful API (without writing code)

This chapter focuses on using JSON with MongoDB and provides just enough information to work with the database. This chapter doesn’t cover how to develop applications with MongoDB because that would fill an entire book. For a full description of the rich functionality provided by MongoDB, I recommend reading MongoDB in Action, 2nd Ed by Kyle Banker et al. (Manning).

What About BSON?

You may have seen references to Binary JSON (BSON) in the MongoDB documentation. BSON is a binary data format that MongoDB uses internally to serialize JSON documents. See the following for further details:

• BSON specification ...