Using REST to update a document in MongoDB

Updating is identical to insertion, except that it needs a document ID and the client signals an update request with a HTTP POST request, rather than a PUT request.

How to do it...

The client code is exactly the same as the previous recipe; only the server code changes because it needs to extract the ID from the URL and perform an update instead of an insert:

exports.updateDocuments = function(req, res) {
  var id = new objectId(req.params.id);
  var document = req.body;
  db.collection('documents', function(err, collection) {
    collection.update({'_id':id}, document, {safe:true}, 
      function(err, result) {
        if (err) {
          console.log('Error updating documents: ' + err);
          res.send({'error':'An error has occurred'});
        } else {
          console.log('' + result + ' document(s) updated');
          res.send(documents);
        }
    });
  });
};

Let's look at that in more detail.

How it works…

Returning to the client implementation...