It's not possible to lock a mongodb document. What if I need to?

Question

I know that I can\'t lock a single mongodb document, in fact there is no way to lock a collection either.

However, I\'ve got this scenario, where I think I need some

Answer 1

Hey the only way of which I think now is to add an status parameter and use the operation findAndModify(), which enables you to atomically modify a document. It's a bit slower, but should do the trick.

So let's say you add an status attribut and when you retrieve the document change the status from "IDLE" to "PROCESSING". Then you update the document and save it back to the collection updating the status to "IDLE" again.

Code example:

var doc = db.runCommand({
              "findAndModify" : "COLLECTION_NAME",
              "query" : {"_id": "ID_DOCUMENT", "status" : "IDLE"},
              "update" : {"$set" : {"status" : "RUNNING"} }
}).value

Change the COLLECTION_NAME and ID_DOCUMENT to a proper value. By default findAndModify() returns the old value, which means the status value will be still IDLE on the client side. So when you are done with updating just save/update everything again.

The only think you need be be aware is that you can only modify one document at a time.

Hope it helps.