PyMongo upsert throws "upsert must be an instance of bool" error

python mongodb pymongo
ComputationalSocialScience picture ComputationalSocialScience · Feb 20, 2011 · Viewed 46.6k times · Source

I'm running an update on my MongoDB from Python. I have this line:

self.word_counts[source].update({'date':posttime},{"$inc" : words},{'upsert':True})

But it throws this error:

raise TypeError("upsert must be an instance of bool")

But True looks like an instance of bool to me!

How should I correctly write this update?

Answer

Brendan W. McAdams picture Brendan W. McAdams · Feb 20, 2011

The third argument to PyMongo's update() is upsert and must be passed a boolean, not a dictionary. Change your code to:

self.word_counts[source].update({'date':posttime}, {"$inc" : words}, True)

Or pass upsert=True as a keyword argument:

self.word_counts[source].update({'date':posttime}, {"$inc" : words}, upsert=True)

Your mistake was likely caused by reading about update() in the MongoDB docs. The JavaScript version of update takes an object as its third argument containing optional parameters like upsert and multi. But since Python allows passing keyword arguments to a function (unlike JavaScript which only has positional arguments), this is unnecessary and PyMongo takes these options as optional function parameters instead.

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