Dynamically build query with regex in PyMongo

Question

I want to query different fields on MongoDB from Python, like in an advanced search.

Keeping the example simple with just one field, if I query {'Title': /my string/} manually on Mongo I get the expected results.

On Python I am doing the following:

query = {}
args = request.form
for arg in args:
  key = "{0}".format(arg)
  if args[arg] != "":
    query[key] = "/" + args[arg].lower() + "/"

However, the query is like this (note the quotes):

{'Title': '/my string/'}

So I don't get any results. How can I implement the right query?

alecxe · Accepted Answer · 2016-02-07 15:05:36Z

4

Make a list:

conditions = [{field: {"$regex": value.lower()}} for field, value in args.items()]

Then, join the conditions with $or or $and (depending on how do you want to apply them):

db.col.find({"$or": conditions})

answered Feb 7, 2016 at 15:05

alecxe

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