As per the Mongoid Documentation (opens new window), there are 16 valid field types:

• Array
• BigDecimal
• Boolean
• Date
• DateTime
• Float
• Hash
• Integer
• BSON::ObjectId
• BSON::Binary
• Range
• Regexp
• String
• Symbol
• Time
• TimeWithZone

To add a field (let's call it name and have it be a String), add this to your model file:

field :name, type: String

To set a default value, just pass in the default option:

field :name, type: String, default: ""

First, add Mongoid to your Gemfile:

gem "mongoid", "~> 4.0.0"

and then run bundle install. Or just run:

$ gem install mongoid

After installation, run the generator to create the config file:

$ rails g mongoid:config

which will create the file (myapp)/config/mongoid.yml.

Create a model (lets call it User) by running:

$ rails g model User

which will generate the file app/models/user.rb:

class User
  include Mongoid::Document

end

This is all you need to have a model (albeit nothing but an id field). Unlike ActiveRecord, there is no migration files. All the database information for the model is contained in the model file.

Timestamps are not automatically included in your model when you generate it. To add created_at and updated_at to your model, add

include Mongoid::Timestamps

to your model underneath include Mongoid::Document like so:

class User
  include Mongoid::Document
  include Mongoid::Timestamps

end

Mongoid allows the classic ActiveRecord associations:

• One-to-one: has_one / belongs_to
• One-to-many: has_many / belongs_to
• Many-to-many: has_and_belongs_to_many

To add an association (lets say the User has_many posts), you can add this to your User model file:

has_many :posts

and this to your Post model file:

belongs_to :user

This will add a user_id field in your Post model, add a user method to your Post class, and add a posts method to your User class.

Mongoid allows Embedded Associations:

• One-to-one: embeds_one / embedded_in
• One-to-many: embeds_many / embedded_in

To add an association (lets say the User embeds_many addresses), add this to your User file:

embeds_many :addresses

and this to your Address model file:

embedded_in :user

This will embed Address in your User model, adding a addresses method to your User class.

Mongoid tries to have similar syntax to ActiveRecord when it can. It supports these calls (and many more)

User.first #Gets first user from the database

User.count #Gets the count of all users from the database

User.find(params[:id]) #Returns the user with the id found in params[:id]

User.where(name: "Bob") #Returns a Mongoid::Criteria object that can be chained
                        #with other queries (like another 'where' or an 'any_in')
                        #Does NOT return any objects from database

User.where(name: "Bob").entries #Returns all objects with name "Bob" from database

User.where(:name.in => ['Bob', 'Alice']).entries #Returns all objects with name "Bob" or "Alice" from database

User.any_in(name: ["Bob", "Joe"]).first #Returns the first object with name "Bob" or "Joe"
User.where(:name => 'Bob').exists? # will return true if there is one or more users with name bob