How to search for users by both first and last name with MongoDB?

Question

I have a basic collection of users that have their firstName, lastName and a few other details.

How would I simply search for users by a combination of both names, or partial search?

For example, for a collection of:

{
   firstName: Bob,
   lastName: Jerry
}, {
   firstName: Clark,
   lastName: Mcbobby
}

If the search term was bob, both users would be returned since the first documents firstName is bob, and the last users lastName contains bob. If bob j was the search term, just the first document would be returned since if both names are combine, it equals Bob Jerry which matches the search term.

I tried creating a basic aggregate to concatenate the names and then make a match, although Mongoose kept throwing me an error of: Arguments must be aggregate pipeline operators.

Here is my current code:

User.aggregate({
    $project: { "name" : { $concat : [ "$firstName", " ", "$lastName" ] } },
    $match: {"name": {$regex: "/bob j/i"}}
}).exec(function(err, results) {
    ...
});

Answer 1

I see couple of mistakes in your code causing undesired result.

1. Aggregation pipeline accepts array of aggregation framework operations. In your case, you are missing [] operator. It should be like

   User.aggregate([{$project...},{$match...}])

2. In $match stage you are using regex, if you are using /../ style of regex, you don't need to wrap it around string quotes. It should be /bob j/i

Here is finished example:

User.aggregate([
  {$project: { "name" : { $concat : [ "$firstName", " ", "$lastName" ] } }},
  {$match: {"name": {$regex: /bob j/i}}}
]).exec(function(err, result){
  console.log(result);
});

You should see [ { _id: 574c3e20be214bd4078a9149, name: 'Bob Jerry' } ] on screen.