mongodb-error validating settings: only one positional argument is allowed

Question

I just moved to a new laptop which had mongo 3.0.0 I believe. On the new laptop I have mongo 3.0.4. and trying the script that was working on the old laptop is giving me errors. This line is giving me the error.

mongoimport --host localhost \
            -db roudy123_q \
            -collection LebaneseAmericanUniversity\(Lebanon\).json \
            --file LebaneseAmericanUniversity\(Lebanon\).json \
            --jsonArray

error validating settings: only one positional argument is allowed.

I googled the error and the only relevant result was the source code of mongoimport. So I guess it has something to do with the new version.

Answer 1

Just a wild guess...

... but the various long options should be specified using --, not -:

mongoimport --host localhost \
            --db roudy123_q \
            --collection LebaneseAmericanUniversity\(Lebanon\).json \
            --file LebaneseAmericanUniversity\(Lebanon\).json \
            --jsonArray

Maybe this particular version of mongoimport is more punctilious about that, and will treat -db ... -collection ... as positional arguments rather than keyword arguments ?

Answer 2

This error can also occur if white spaces are given without a "\" in the path to the file . Ex: This wont work:

But this would work :

Answer 3

If you get this error while inserting fields with --fields, the probable reason might be you are using spaces to do that.

Both -f and --fields should work in those cases Using Mongo Version 3.0.6

mongoimport --db logs --collection action_logs --type tsv -f updated_at ,transaction_time ,origin  --file parsed.tsv
mongoimport --db logs --collection action_logs --type tsv -f updated_at,transaction_time,origin  --file parsed.tsv

Answer 4

I think giving a white spaces in the file name of directory will also contribute to this error.