Mongo DB gridfs references

43 views

Skip to first unread message

Martin Tumwine

unread,

Mar 11, 2018, 3:01:41 AM3/11/18

to mongodb-user

I am trying to model a user account with profile picture. Using mongo db, how do I add reference from gridfs bucket to specific user to get correct user with right profile picture?

Kevin Adistambha

unread,

Mar 29, 2018, 1:16:38 AM3/29/18

to mongodb-user

Hi Martin

GridFS is a convention designed to allow MongoDB to store files larger than 16 MB (the maximum BSON size). As such, it still works like a normal MongoDB collection (with the mandatory _id field). Note that since it is a convention, it is up to the application to make sense of the data stored in GridFS.

Typically, GridFS stores files using two collections: files and chunks (see the GridFS page for details). If you need to refer to a certain GridFS object, you can store the _id of the associated file. This _id in the files collection should be able to uniquely identify the file.

Having said that, BSON has a maximum size of 16 MB. If you find that the profile pictures + profile data you’re trying to store will never exceed this size, you may be able to just store the picture in the profile document instead.