Arrays and Dicts in MongoDB

Array is easy to use if the elements are flat, e.g.,

{
    "alternative_of_names": [
        "Jane Doe",
        "John Doe",
        "Tim Doe"
    ]
}

When updating with new values, we could simply use $addToSet.

Array of json objects becomes really hard to update.

{
    "alternative_of_names": [
        {
            "source": "Magzine",
            "first": "Jane",
            "last": "Doe"
        },
        {
            "source": "TV",
            "first": "John",
            "last": "Doe"
        },
        {
            "source": "Ads",
            "first": "Tim",
            "last": "Doe"
        }
    ]
}

Suppose we would like to update the name from source “Ads”, it becomes tedious.

For the above purpose, we could simply rewrite the database in the following way.

{
    "alternative_of_names": {
        "Magzine":
             {
                 "first": "Jane",
                 "last": "Doe"
             },
        "TV":
             {
                 "first": "John",
                 "last": "Doe"
             },
        "Ads":
             {
                 "first": "Tim",
                 "last": "Doe"
             }
    }
}

Then we can update easily with $set.