Update MongoDB field using value of another field

Starting Mongo 4.2, db.collection.update() can accept an aggregation pipeline, finally allowing the update/creation of a field based on another field:

// { firstName: "Hello", lastName: "World" }
db.collection.update(
  {},
  [{ $set: { name: { $concat: [ "$firstName", " ", "$lastName" ] } } }],
  { multi: true }
)
// { "firstName" : "Hello", "lastName" : "World", "name" : "Hello World" }

• The first part {} is the match query, filtering which documents to update (in our case all documents).

• The second part [{ $set: { name: { ... } }] is the update aggregation pipeline (note the squared brackets signifying the use of an aggregation pipeline). $set is a new aggregation operator and an alias of $addFields.

• Don't forget { multi: true }, otherwise only the first matching document will be updated.

Regarding this answer, the snapshot function is deprecated in version 3.6, according to this update. So, on version 3.6 and above, it is possible to perform the operation this way:

db.person.find().forEach(
    function (elem) {
        db.person.update(
            {
                _id: elem._id
            },
            {
                $set: {
                    name: elem.firstname + ' ' + elem.lastname
                }
            }
        );
    }
);

update() method takes aggregation pipeline as parameter like

db.collection_name.update(
  {
    // Query
  },
  [
    // Aggregation pipeline
    { "$set": { "id": "$_id" } }
  ],
  {
    // Options
    "multi": true // false when a single doc has to be updated
  }
)

The field can be set or unset with existing values using the aggregation pipeline.

Note: use $ with field name to specify the field which has to be read.

With MongoDB version 4.2+, updates are more flexible as it allows the use of aggregation pipeline in its update, updateOne and updateMany. You can now transform your documents using the aggregation operators then update without the need to explicity state the $set command (instead we use $replaceRoot: {newRoot: "$$ROOT"})

Here we use the aggregate query to extract the timestamp from MongoDB's ObjectID "_id" field and update the documents (I am not an expert in SQL but I think SQL does not provide any auto generated ObjectID that has timestamp to it, you would have to automatically create that date)

var collection = "person"

agg_query = [
    {
        "$addFields" : {
            "_last_updated" : {
                "$toDate" : "$_id"
            }
        }
    },
    {
        $replaceRoot: {
            newRoot: "$$ROOT"
        } 
    }
]

db.getCollection(collection).updateMany({}, agg_query, {upsert: true})

(I would have posted this as a comment, but couldn't)

For anyone who lands here trying to update one field using another in the document with the c# driver... I could not figure out how to use any of the UpdateXXX methods and their associated overloads since they take an UpdateDefinition as an argument.

// we want to set Prop1 to Prop2
class Foo { public string Prop1 { get; set; } public string Prop2 { get; set;} } 

void Test()
{ 
     var update = new UpdateDefinitionBuilder<Foo>();
     update.Set(x => x.Prop1, <new value; no way to get a hold of the object that I can find>)
}

As a workaround, I found that you can use the RunCommand method on an IMongoDatabase (https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/reference/command/update/#dbcmd.update).

var command = new BsonDocument
        {
            { "update", "CollectionToUpdate" },
            { "updates", new BsonArray 
                 { 
                       new BsonDocument
                       {
                            // Any filter; here the check is if Prop1 does not exist
                            { "q", new BsonDocument{ ["Prop1"] = new BsonDocument("$exists", false) }}, 
                            // set it to the value of Prop2
                            { "u", new BsonArray { new BsonDocument { ["$set"] = new BsonDocument("Prop1", "$Prop2") }}},
                            { "multi", true }
                       }
                 }
            }
        };

 database.RunCommand<BsonDocument>(command);