$limit and $skip stages in MongoDB - Cheat Sheet & Quick Revision

Recall & Review

beginner

What does the $limit stage do in a MongoDB aggregation pipeline?

The $limit stage restricts the number of documents passed to the next stage. It returns only the first N documents, where N is the specified limit number.

beginner

What is the purpose of the $skip stage in MongoDB aggregation?

The $skip stage skips over a specified number of documents and passes the remaining documents to the next stage. It is often used to paginate results.

intermediate

How do $skip and $limit work together in MongoDB?

You can use $skip to jump past a number of documents and then $limit to restrict how many documents to return after skipping. This combination is useful for pagination.

beginner

If you want to get the first 5 documents from a collection using aggregation, which stage would you use?

Use the $limit stage with the value 5 to get the first 5 documents.

intermediate

What happens if you use $skip with a number larger than the total documents in the collection?

If $skip is larger than the total documents, the result will be an empty set because all documents are skipped.

Which MongoDB aggregation stage limits the number of documents passed to the next stage?

A $match

B $skip

C $limit

D $group

$limit restricts the number of documents passed forward.

What does the $skip stage do in an aggregation pipeline?

A Limits the number of documents

B Groups documents by a field

C Sorts the documents

D Skips a specified number of documents

$skip skips over a number of documents before passing the rest.

To get documents 11 to 20 from a collection, which combination of stages is correct?

A <code>$skip: 10</code> then <code>$limit: 10</code>

B <code>$limit: 10</code> then <code>$skip: 10</code>

C <code>$limit: 20</code> then <code>$skip: 10</code>

D <code>$skip: 20</code> then <code>$limit: 10</code>

First skip 10 documents, then limit to 10 documents to get 11-20.

What will be the output if $skip is set to 0?

A All documents are skipped

B No documents are skipped

C Only one document is skipped

D Error occurs

$skip: 0 means no documents are skipped.

Which stage should come first to paginate results correctly?

A <code>$skip</code> then <code>$limit</code>

B Order does not matter

C <code>$limit</code> then <code>$skip</code>

D Use only <code>$limit</code>

You skip first, then limit the number of documents returned.

Explain how you would use $skip and $limit to get the second page of results if each page shows 10 documents.

Think about how many documents to skip to start the second page.

What happens if you use $limit without $skip in a query?

Consider what limiting alone does to the result set.