How to access a collection in MongoDB using Python? (original) (raw)

Last Updated : 12 Jul, 2025

MongoDB is a cross-platform, document-oriented database that works on the concept of collections and documents. MongoDB offers high speed, high availability, and high scalability.

Accessing a Collection

1) Getting a list of collection: For getting a list of a MongoDB database's collections list_collection_names() method is used. This method returns a list of collections.
Syntax:

list_collection_names()

Example:

Sample Database:

Python3 `

from pymongo import MongoClient

create an client instance of the

MongoDB class

mo_c = MongoClient()

create an instance of 'some_database'

db = mo_c.GFG

get a list of a MongoDB database's

collections

collections = db.list_collection_names() print ("collections:", collections, "\n")

`

Output:

collections: ['Geeks']

2) Check if the collection exist or not: To check if the collection attribute exists for the database use hasattr() method. It returns true if the collection is in database otherwise returns false.

Syntax: hasattr(db, 'collectionname')

Parameters:
db: It is database object.
collectionname: It is the name of the collection.

Example:

Python3 `

from pymongo import MongoClient

create an client instance of

the MongoDB class

mo_c = MongoClient()

create an instance of 'some_database'

db = mo_c.GFG

check collection is exists or not

print(hasattr(db, 'Geeks'))

`

Output:

True

3) Accessing a Collection: To access a MongoDB collection name use the below syntax.

Syntax:

database_object.Collectionname or database_object["Collectionname"]

Note: Database_object["Collectioname"] can be useful in the case where the name of the collection contains a space in between them i.e. in cases like database_object["Collection name"].
Example:

Python3 `

from pymongo import MongoClient

create an client instance of

the MongoDB class

mo_c = MongoClient()

create an instance of 'some_database'

db = mo_c.GFG

col1 = db["gfg"]

print ("Collection:", col1)

`

Output:

Collection: Collection(Database(MongoClient(host=['localhost:27017'], document_class=dict, tz_aware=False, connect=True), 'GFG'), 'gfg')