Sort the Returned Documents

The new Data Explorer user interface is available in Public Preview and includes new features that weren't present in the old interface. To learn more, see Preview Features.

If the query bar displays the Sort option, you can specify the sort order of the returned documents.

Set the Sort Order

To set the sort order:

In Atlas, go to the Data Explorer page for your project.

If it's not already displayed, select the organization that contains your project from the Organizations menu in the navigation bar.
If it's not already displayed, select your project from the Projects menu in the navigation bar.
In the sidebar, click Data Explorer under the Database heading.
The Data Explorer displays.

Note

You can also go to the Clusters page, and click Data Explorer under the Shortcuts heading.

Set the sort order.

Select the collection.
In the Query Bar, click Options.
Enter the sort document into the Sort field.
- To specify ascending order for a field, set the field to 1 in the sort document.
- To specify descending order for a field, set the field and -1 in the sort documents.
Example
The following sort document sorts results first by year in descending order, and within each year, sort by name in ascending order.
{ year: -1, name: 1 }
As you type, the Find button is disabled and the Sort label turns red until a valid query is entered.
Click Find to run the query and view the updated results.

Clear the Query

To clear the query bar and the results of the query, click Reset.

How Does the Atlas Query Compare to MongoDB and SQL Queries?

$sort corresponds to the ORDER BY ... clause in a SQL SELECT statement.

Example

You have 3,235 articles. You would like to see a list of articles sorted alphabetically by headline.

SQL

SELECT * FROM article
ORDER BY headline ASC;

MongoDB Aggregation

db.article.aggregate(
  { $sort : { headline : 1 } }
);

Atlas Sort Option

$sort : { headline : 1 }

Learn More

See the sort entry in the MongoDB Manual.

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Set Returned Fields

Adjust Maximum Time