Explorer
MongoDB

Delete all users with `role: "spam"`, set remaining users `verified` to `true`, then return distinct roles.

Problem Statement

<p>Delete all <code>users</code> with <code>role: "spam"</code>, set remaining <code>users</code> <code>verified</code> to <code>true</code>, then return distinct roles.</p>

Examples

Input: users collection: +-----+----------+-------+----------+ | _id | name | role | verified | +-----+----------+-------+----------+ | 1 | Alice | admin | false | | 2 | Spammer1 | spam | false | | 3 | Bob | user | false | | 4 | Spammer2 | spam | false | | 5 | Charlie | user | false | +-----+----------+-------+----------+

Output: +--------+ | result | +--------+ | admin | | user | +--------+

Explanation: The target document is modified according to the update operators and the updated document is returned.

Complexity

Time Complexity: -

Space Complexity: -

Hints

šŸ’” Hint 1: Use db.<collection>.find(<filter>) to query the documents in the collection. šŸ’” Hint 2: Pass an empty object {} to retrieve all documents, or specify key-value pairs for exact matching. šŸ’” Hint 3: Chain .toArray() to resolve the MongoDB cursor into a JavaScript array: return db.<collection>.find(...).toArray();

Editorial & Approach

Problem Overview & Intuition

To solve "Data Cleanup: Remove + Update + Report", we query the MongoDB document store. The goal is to delete all users with `role: "spam"`, set remaining users `verified` to `true`, then return distinct roles. Using a targeted find query, the database engine filters and structures the BSON documents efficiently.

Step-by-Step Approach

  1. Identify Target Collection: Access the collection through the db instance.
  2. Construct Query / Pipeline: Build the query filter with appropriate comparison operators.
  3. Resolve Cursor: Invoke .toArray() to transform the query cursor into the required array of documents.

Optimal Implementation (MongoDB)

function solve(db) {
  db.users.deleteMany({ role: "spam" });
  db.users.updateMany({}, { $set: { verified: true } });
  return db.users.distinct("role");
}

Complexity Analysis

Time Complexity O(N) collection scan (O(log N) if index is present on filtered fields).
Space Complexity O(K) where K is the number of returned documents in memory.

Key Considerations & Edge Cases

  • Empty Collections: If no documents match, the query cleanly returns an empty array [].
  • Missing / NULL Fields: Missing fields in documents are handled safely without throwing runtime exceptions.
  • Type Coercion: BSON types (ObjectId, Numbers, Strings) are compared strictly according to MongoDB specifications.

Data Cleanup: Remove + Update + Report

Hard

Delete all users with role: "spam", set remaining users verified to true, then return distinct roles.

Example Scenarios
1Example 1
Input:
users collection
_idnameroleverified
1Aliceadminfalse
2Spammer1spamfalse
3Bobuserfalse
4Spammer2spamfalse
5Charlieuserfalse
Output:
result
admin
user
Explanation:

The target document is modified according to the update operators and the updated document is returned.

MongoDB Editor
Loading Editor...
Query Results (JSON)

Run your MongoDB code to see results here.