MONGOC_COLLECTION_WATCH(3)

📦
version 2.5.6 · 16 versions
, in epel 10

💖 MONGOC_COLLECTION_WATCH(3) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the libmongoc manual page for mongoc_collection_watch(3). This helper ate and left no crumbs: it's the one that creates a change stream, and ngl, it's giving "why would you do a raw aggregation when this exists?" energy. 🫶

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

          mongoc_change_stream_t*
          mongoc_collection_watch (const mongoc_collection_t *coll,
                                   const bson_t *pipeline,
                                   const bson_t *opts);

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

This is a helper function to create a change stream. It is preferred to call this function over using a raw aggregation to create a change stream. No cap.

This function uses the read preference and read concern of the collection. If the change stream needs to re-establish connection, the same read preference will be used. This may happen if the change stream encounters a resumable error.

⚠️ WARNING: A change stream is only supported with majority read concern. That's the whole vibe check, bestie — majority read concern only, periodt. 💀

This function is considered a retryable read operation. Upon a transient error (a network error, errors due to replica set failover, etc.) the operation is safely retried once. If retryreads is false in the URI (see mongoc_uri_t) the retry behavior does not apply.

🎀 PARAMETERS 🎀

  • coll — A mongoc_collection_t specifying the collection which the change stream listens to.
  • pipeline — A bson_t representing an aggregation pipeline appended to the change stream. This may be an empty document.
  • opts — A bson_t containing change stream options.

Changed in version 2.0.0: batchSize of 0 is applied to the aggregate command. 0 was previously ignored.

opts may be NULL or a BSON document with additional command options:

  • batchSize — An int32 requesting a limit of documents returned in each server reply. If positive, the batchSize is applied to both aggregate and getMore commands. If 0, the batchSize is only applied to the aggregate command (useful to request an immediate cursor without significant server-side work. See Aggregate Data Specifying Batch Size). If omitted or negative, the value is ignored and server defaults are used (see Cursor Batches for a description of server defaults).
  • resumeAfter — A Document representing the logical starting point of the change stream. The result of mongoc_change_stream_get_resume_token() or the _id field of any change received from a change stream can be used here. This option is mutually exclusive with startAfter and startAtOperationTime.
  • startAfter — A Document representing the logical starting point of the change stream. Unlike resumeAfter, this can resume notifications after an "invalidate" event. The result of mongoc_change_stream_get_resume_token() or the _id field of any change received from a change stream can be used here. This option is mutually exclusive with resumeAfter and startAtOperationTime.
  • startAtOperationTime — A Timestamp. The change stream only provides changes that occurred at or after the specified timestamp. Any command run against the server will return an operation time that can be used here. This option is mutually exclusive with resumeAfter and startAfter.
  • maxAwaitTimeMS — An int64 representing the maximum amount of time a call to mongoc_change_stream_next() will block waiting for data.
  • fullDocument — An optional UTF-8 string. Set this option to "default", "updateLookup", "whenAvailable", or "required". If unset, the string "default" is assumed. Set this option to "updateLookup" to direct the change stream cursor to lookup the most current majority-committed version of the document associated to an update change stream event.
  • fullDocumentBeforeChange — An optional UTF-8 string. Set this option to "whenAvailable", "required", or "off". When unset, the default value is "off". Similar to "fullDocument", but returns the value of the document before the associated change.
  • showExpandedEvents — Set to true to return an expanded list of change stream events. Available only on MongoDB versions >=6.0.
  • comment — A bson_value_t specifying the comment to attach to this command. The comment will appear in log messages, profiler output, and currentOp output. Only string values are supported prior to MongoDB 4.4.

🦋 RETURNS 🦋

A newly allocated mongoc_change_stream_t which must be freed with mongoc_change_stream_destroy() when no longer in use. The returned mongoc_change_stream_t is never NULL. If there is an error, it can be retrieved with mongoc_change_stream_error_document(), and subsequent calls to mongoc_change_stream_next() will return false.

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

  • mongoc_client_watch()
  • mongoc_database_watch()

👑 AUTHOR 👑

MongoDB, Inc

2009-present, MongoDB, Inc.

💖 that's the whole page, bestie! 💖 This was MONGOC_COLLECTION_WATCH(3) from libmongoc version 2.5.6, dated Oct 09, 2026. Slay, and remember: change streams are main character energy. 💅✨

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