# How to insert ObjectId's from MongoDB with apoc?

**URL:** <https://community.neo4j.com/t/how-to-insert-objectids-from-mongodb-with-apoc/10125>\
**Category:** Procedures & APOC\
**Tags:** apoc\
**Created:** [September 14, 2019, 9:50pm UTC](https://community.neo4j.com/t/how-to-insert-objectids-from-mongodb-with-apoc/10125 "2019-09-14T21:50:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 9\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hedefalk](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex021/user_avatar/community.neo4j.com/hedefalk/32/6403_2.png) [@hedefalk](https://community.neo4j.com/u/hedefalk)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 9:50pm UTC](https://community.neo4j.com/t/how-to-insert-objectids-from-mongodb-with-apoc/10125/1 "2019-09-14T21:50:40Z")

</div>

I'm trying to seed a neo4j with data from a mongodb using apoc. The idea is to first create a kindof 1-1 mirror of the mongo db and then replace the key-based mapping with relations. I'm having troubles with ObjectId's which are extensively used as the main means for relations (PK/FK):

```auto
{
	"_id" : ObjectId("50db1341c2e638a3ebef2404"),
	"parent" : ObjectId("50db12c2c2e638a3ebef2401"),
	"referralDensityInfo" : ObjectId("50db12c2c2e638a3ebef2401"),
	"unitInfo" : [],
	"plural" : "Röda paprikor",
	"singular" : "Röd paprika",
	"referralUnitInfo" : [
		{
			"reference" : ObjectId("50db12c2c2e638a3ebef2401"),
			"unit" : ObjectId("508e86f6c2e60ff9d423e293")
		}
	],
	"dataSourceNutritionInfo" : ObjectId("507aa464c2e631891c0d9046"),
	"referralNutritionInfo" : ObjectId("50db12c2c2e638a3ebef2401"),
	"preferredName" : "Röd paprika",
	"searchWords" : [
		""
	]
}

```

First try was just using:

```auto
CALL apoc.mongodb.get('mongodb://host.docker.internal:5700','kostbevakningen','ingredients', {})

Cannot convert org.bson.types.ObjectId to AnyValue

```

Then I found this little clue:

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex021/uploads/neo4jcommunity/original/2X/1/17c94fe2f818750e60ccee3dc88121321751e3d8.png)

So now calling:

```auto
CALL apoc.mongodb.get('mongodb://host.docker.internal:5700','kostbevakningen','ingredients', {}, true)

```

I get a bunch of data and it seems to work so far. However, when trying to use the values:

```auto
CALL apoc.mongodb.get('mongodb://host.docker.internal:5700','kostbevakningen','ingredients', {}, true) YIELD value as mongo_i
MERGE (i: Ingredient {_id: mongo_i._id})
SET i += {
  parent: mongo_i.parent,
  dataSourceNutritionInfo: mongo_i.dataSourceNutritionInfo
};

Property values can only be of primitive types or arrays thereof

```

So I guess there is something I'm missing in the puzzle still to be able to use these ObjectId's.

I have the jar's I'm supposed to have I think:

```auto
# ls -l plugins
total 15840
-rwxrwxrwx 1 neo4j neo4j 2217 Aug 22 11:27 README.txt
-rw------- 1 neo4j neo4j 13749813 May 31 11:12 apoc-3.5.0.4-all.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 494021 Aug 13 11:06 bson-3.11.0.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 374817 Aug 13 11:43 mongodb-driver-3.11.0.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1435219 Aug 13 11:25 mongodb-driver-core-3.11.0.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 152721 Aug 13 11:34 mongodb-driver-sync-3.11.0.jar

```

There seems to be some effort to handle Id's here:

> <https://github.com/neo4j-contrib/neo4j-apoc-procedures/blob/9f6cf4fc256eb7505fdfa48c6a8f749d8bf352f1/src/main/java/apoc/mongodb/MongoDBColl.java#L86>

but this seems to just handle the object primary key "\_id", not any foreign key references to such a primary key which I guess is why I'm having problems.

Can I hook my own serializer in there somewhere? I would like to stick a `toString()` there on my keys and I would be fine I guess, but now it's just choking…

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hedefalk](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex021/user_avatar/community.neo4j.com/hedefalk/32/6403_2.png) [@hedefalk](https://community.neo4j.com/u/hedefalk)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 9:55pm UTC](https://community.neo4j.com/t/how-to-insert-objectids-from-mongodb-with-apoc/10125/2 "2019-09-14T21:55:36Z")

</div>

I noticed that the jar's permissions probably wasn't good. I figured maybe some automagic conversion wasn't flying because of missing bson.jar so I fixed that in my docker build:

```auto
COPY --from=sbt-build --chown=neo4j:neo4j /root/target/pack/lib/bson*.jar /var/lib/neo4j/plugins/
COPY --from=sbt-build --chown=neo4j:neo4j /root/target/pack/lib/mongodb-driver*.jar /var/lib/neo4j/plugins/

```

```auto
# ls -l plugins
total 15840
-rwxrwxrwx 1 neo4j neo4j 2217 Aug 22 11:27 README.txt
-rw------- 1 neo4j neo4j 13749813 May 31 11:12 apoc-3.5.0.4-all.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 neo4j neo4j 494021 Aug 13 11:06 bson-3.11.0.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 neo4j neo4j 374817 Aug 13 11:43 mongodb-driver-3.11.0.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 neo4j neo4j 1435219 Aug 13 11:25 mongodb-driver-core-3.11.0.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 neo4j neo4j 152721 Aug 13 11:34 mongodb-driver-sync-3.11.0.jar

```

but unfortunately that didn't help.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hedefalk](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex021/user_avatar/community.neo4j.com/hedefalk/32/6403_2.png) [@hedefalk](https://community.neo4j.com/u/hedefalk)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 10:00pm UTC](https://community.neo4j.com/t/how-to-insert-objectids-from-mongodb-with-apoc/10125/3 "2019-09-14T22:00:33Z")

</div>

Ooh, ok, found the `apoc.convert.toString`

```auto
CALL apoc.mongodb.get('mongodb://host.docker.internal:5700','kostbevakningen','ingredients', {}, true) YIELD value as mongo_i
MERGE (i: Ingredient {_id: apoc.convert.toString(mongo_i._id)})
SET i += {
  parent: apoc.convert.toString(mongo_i.parent),
  dataSourceNutritionInfo: apoc.convert.toString(mongo_i.dataSourceNutritionInfo)
};

```

seems to work :)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hedefalk](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex021/user_avatar/community.neo4j.com/hedefalk/32/6403_2.png) [@hedefalk](https://community.neo4j.com/u/hedefalk)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 10:03pm UTC](https://community.neo4j.com/t/how-to-insert-objectids-from-mongodb-with-apoc/10125/4 "2019-09-14T22:03:32Z")

</div>

Nope, that did not work well. That toString seems to do some object traversal which is definitely not what I want:

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex021/uploads/neo4jcommunity/original/2X/b/b89ef1dec7ad09740e3c2c0d6e8cadddd29bf455.png)

Any tips highly appreciated!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mike\_r\_black](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex021/user_avatar/community.neo4j.com/mike_r_black/32/30089_2.png) [@mike\_r\_black](https://community.neo4j.com/u/mike_r_black)\
**Post date:** [September 15, 2019, 4:00am UTC](https://community.neo4j.com/t/how-to-insert-objectids-from-mongodb-with-apoc/10125/5 "2019-09-15T04:00:20Z")

</div>

I can't offer any help but I hope you're able to figure it out because I too will be doing a similar task soon so I'll be following this post for any wisdom I can glean.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![michael.hunger](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex021/user_avatar/community.neo4j.com/michael.hunger/32/27377_2.png) [@michael.hunger](https://community.neo4j.com/u/michael.hunger)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2019, 6:14am UTC](https://community.neo4j.com/t/how-to-insert-objectids-from-mongodb-with-apoc/10125/6 "2019-09-16T06:14:54Z")

</div>

Can you create an APOC GH issue, so that we can handle those types of objects recursively both by themselves but also as part of arrays/subdocuments.

and link this thread.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hedefalk](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex021/user_avatar/community.neo4j.com/hedefalk/32/6403_2.png) [@hedefalk](https://community.neo4j.com/u/hedefalk)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2019, 10:07am UTC](https://community.neo4j.com/t/how-to-insert-objectids-from-mongodb-with-apoc/10125/7 "2019-09-16T10:07:48Z")

</div>

Done. I can't link that issue because:

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex021/uploads/neo4jcommunity/original/2X/6/66f2a3e19f5e54ddad7751d5cdf1adddc251fa48.png)

Probably should allow even newcomers to post links to github at least. But it's #1288.

I went another path so no rush for my sake 🙂

@mike_r_black I think it makes sense for anything but the most simple cases to probably make an app in your language of choice for the migration. I made a Scala app now that pulls data from Mongo and sticks them into neo4j, just using the appropriate drivers, in my case mongo-scala-driver and neotypes.

It seems to me that the apoc plugin for mongo is very very basic to say the least. I can't imagine anyone has ever used it for anything real, but maybe I'm missing something.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![michael.hunger](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex021/user_avatar/community.neo4j.com/michael.hunger/32/27377_2.png) [@michael.hunger](https://community.neo4j.com/u/michael.hunger)\
**Post date:** [November 12, 2019, 12:43am UTC](https://community.neo4j.com/t/how-to-insert-objectids-from-mongodb-with-apoc/10125/8 "2019-11-12T00:43:41Z")

</div>

we fixed the issue in the current apoc release

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![deep.deepak.3891](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex021/user_avatar/community.neo4j.com/deep.deepak.3891/32/15859_2.png) [@deep.deepak.3891](https://community.neo4j.com/u/deep.deepak.3891)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 9:13am UTC](https://community.neo4j.com/t/how-to-insert-objectids-from-mongodb-with-apoc/10125/9 "2021-01-02T09:13:43Z")

</div>

Hello Michael,  
I am doing a project in which I have to use mongoDB collection with which I want to use mongo ObjectId as neo4j collection's properties. I used apoc.convert.toString, it worked but I only want the exact value part of the objectId. Please suggest me some solution so that I can achieve my goal.

I am attaching screenshot for you to understand my issue.

Thanks.!  
[Screenshot (88)|690x388](https://community.neo4j.com/uploads/short-url/xwQCSHjgGKi7MbRBFJnDSktHtaO.png)