How to access one single collection in a database in MongoDB

Question

When connecting to MongoDB with a Node.JS application using express, how do you connect to just one collection if the database has multiple collections?

I have the following MONGODB_URI:

MONGODB_URI=mongodb+srv://username:******@cluster0.dayw5.mongodb.net/phonebook?retryWrites=true&w=majority

The database "phonebook" has three collections, "numbers", "users" and "people". How do you change the MONGODB_URI to just connect to "numbers" ?

At the moment, the connection is successful, but nothing is being fetched.

Answer 1

You don't; the connection URI is granular to the database only, in your case phonebook . From the resources returned, you must specify a collection to access eg coll = db['users'] and then perform operations against that collection object eg

c = coll.find({name:"foo"});
c.forEach(function(doc) {
    printjson(doc);
});

Answer 2

Both answers given above are basically correct.

I tried to connect to an existing collection but was unable to do so. Instead, MongoDB automatically creates a new collection in the database and gives it a new, custom name: "people" in my case which I did not specify anywhere.