How to make "LIKE" query work in MongoDB?

Question

I have a list of street names and I want to select all that start with "Al". In my MySQL I would do something like

SELECT * FROM streets WHERE "street_name" LIKE "Al%"

How about MongoDB using PHP?

Answer 1

Use a regular expression:

db.streets.find( { street_name : /^Al/i } );

or:

db.streets.find( { street_name : { $regex : '^Al', $options: 'i' } } );

http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/Advanced+Queries#AdvancedQueries-RegularExpressions

Turning this into PHP:

$regex = new MongoRegex("/^Al/i");
$collection->find(array('street_name' => $regex));

Answer 2

See: http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/SQL+to+Mongo+Mapping+Chart

Also, highly recommend just using the native mongodb connector from PHP instead of a wrapper. It's way faster than any wrapper.

http://php.net/class.mongodb