`replaceOne`, `findOneAndReplace` and `bulkWrite`'s `replaceOne` all failed
with "bad update". `update.apply` rejected any update document whose first key
was not `$`-prefixed, so a replacement document -- which by definition has no
operators -- could not get through at all.
MongoDB decides on the first field and nothing else: `$`-prefixed means
operators, anything else means the document *is* the new content. An empty
document is a replacement too, and a legal one. `is_replacement` says which,
`apply_replacement` does the work, and because all three call sites already go
through `apply`, that one branch covers the update command, findAndModify and
the upsert builder.
What a replacement means, precisely:
- every field is replaced except `_id`, which is immutable and keeps its
position at the front, where it is stored and where the `_id_` index
descends on it;
- a replacement may restate the same `_id` but not a different one -- that
is `ImmutableId`, because otherwise a rewrite would silently change a
document's identity while the index entry kept the old key;
- when the target has no `_id` yet, the replacement supplies it. That is the
upsert path: `build_upsert_doc` seeds a document from the filter's
equalities, so `replaceOne({_id: 99}, {u: 1}, {upsert: true})` inserts
`{_id: 99, u: 1}` and not a generated ObjectId;
- a mixed document is refused from either side, rather than guessed at.
Two options on update specs are refused rather than ignored:
- `multi` with a replacement (FailedToParse). A replacement describes one
document; applying it to many would leave every match identical apart from
its `_id`.
- `sort`, a MongoDB 8.0 addition this server does not implement. Ignoring it
is the worst of the three answers -- `sort` chooses *which* match to write,
so the client would silently get a different document than it asked for.
spec scorecard 131 pass / 161 fail -> 161 pass / 131 fail
e2e.js 35 checks -> 45
Sixteen spec files improved and none regressed. The two `-sort` files briefly
did: they had been passing on their "server-side error" case, which our
"bad update" failure satisfied by accident, and passing for the wrong reason is
how a gap survives a scorecard.
Five mutations, each verified red: seeding the replacement from the old pairs,
dropping the `_id` comparison, dropping the `_id` a replacement supplies, and
removing the mixed-document guard from either loop.
Note `nModified` is still wrong for a write that changes nothing -- MongoDB
counts a document as modified only if applying the update altered it. That is
the remaining bulkWrite failure and is fixed next, separately.
MongoDB spec tests
PLAN D2 makes the official MongoDB JSON specification suites the gate for command semantics: it turns "maximally compatible" into a concrete list of test files rather than a judgement call. This directory holds the runner and the committed scorecard.
bash tests/spec/fetch.sh # pinned suites (~175 files, gitignored)
zig build # the runner spawns this binary
node tests/spec/run.js # run everything
node tests/spec/run.js --scorecard # ... and rewrite scorecard.txt
node tests/spec/run.js --file find.json --verbose
node tests/spec/run.js --url mongodb://127.0.0.1:27020 # use a server you started
What is pinned, and why both halves matter
- Suites:
mongodb/specifications@615e0f9, infetch.sh. - Driver:
mongodb@7.5.0, viatests/e2e/package-lock.json.
A scorecard is only comparable across milestones if both are pinned — otherwise a delta could be an upstream test change rather than an engine change. Bump either one in its own commit and re-record the scorecard in that same commit.
The suites are fetched rather than vendored: they are someone else's corpus, upstream rewrites them wholesale, and a pinned commit gives the same reproducibility without putting them in this repo's history.
Scope
source/crud/tests/unified/ — 175 files. The aggregate tests live there too
(aggregate*.json), so this one directory is PLAN M0's "crud + aggregate".
The runner implements the unified test format's Evaluating Matches algorithm as written in the spec, including the two rules that decide whether a result is a real pass:
- extra keys in the actual document are tolerated only in a root document;
- numeric types (int32 / int64 / double) compare flexibly.
Supported: client/database/collection entities, initialData,
outcome, expectError (code, codeName, contains, labels, errorResponse),
saveResultAsEntity, runOnRequirements gating, and the $$type,
$$exists, $$unsetOrMatches, $$matchesEntity, $$matchesHexBytes
operators.
Not asserted yet: expectEvents (command monitoring). Those assertions are
about the command shape the driver emits rather than result semantics. Ignoring
them lets some cases pass that a complete runner would fail, so treat pass
as an upper bound until M1 wires events up. This is stated again at the top of
scorecard.txt so the number is never read out of context.
Not supported, each reported as SKIP with a reason and never as PASS: session
and bucket entities (M4 / GridFS), failPoint, client-side encryption,
testRunner operations, and any operation or matcher the runner does not know.
Reading the scorecard
scorecard.txt records the totals, a per-file breakdown, and every
non-passing case with its reason. The distinction that matters:
- FAIL — the engine answered, and answered differently from the spec. Real
work. An operation that never answered inside
--op-timeout-ms(default 3 s, enforced by the driver itself via CSOTtimeoutMS) is also a FAIL, because "no answer" is a result. There is a second, much longer--case-timeout-msbackstop for a hang the driver cannot see; if it ever fires, treat the run with suspicion — see the trap below. - SKIP — nobody claims anything. Either the suite needs a feature whose milestone has not landed, or the runner does not implement it yet.
M0's gate (PLAN D7.6) is only that the harness exists and the baseline is
recorded. A red baseline is the expected state, so run.js exits 0 as long
as it ran; it is a measuring tool, not a pass/fail gate. Later milestones move
the numbers, and each one commits the new scorecard (PLAN D9).
A trap worth knowing about: the harness can invent failures
The first baseline attempt reported ~77 timeout FAILs that did not exist. Every
case from one point onward timed out, while a ping from a separate process
answered instantly — which read convincingly as a server-side wedge, and was
not.
The cause was in this runner. buildEntities opened MongoClients, and a case
that timed out before it returned left them unclosed; each one keeps a
connection pool and a heartbeat timer. Once enough accumulated, Node's event
loop was starved badly enough that the per-case timer fired before operations
could finish. Then every later case "failed".
Two things guard it now: per-test clients are owned by the caller and closed unconditionally, including on a partial failure; and the run ends by checking how many timers are still active, warning loudly if the answer is more than a handful.
The general rule, since it will come up again: a run with a long unbroken tail of timeouts is a harness bug until proven otherwise. Confirm it by running the first timing-out file on its own — if it passes in isolation, the failures are this runner's, not the engine's.
... but the third time it was the engine
A later attempt produced 166 timeout FAILs starting at file 70. I first blamed
machine load — a concurrent zig build test against a then-3-second budget —
and that was wrong. The evidence against it: the collapse reproduced on an
idle machine, at the same file, with a 10 s budget.
The actual cause was a leaked catalog lock in the engine, and it is worth
knowing how it hid. db-aggregate.json sends {aggregate: 1}, which names no
collection; dispatch resolved the namespace after taking the catalog lock and
bailed with a plain return, holding it shared forever. A leaked shared lock
is invisible to readers, so the server stayed perfectly responsive — an external
prober got ok 15ms right through the hang — and only the next write that had
to take the catalog exclusive to create a collection blocked. The failure
therefore surfaced one file later, on a different connection, as a client-side
timeout with nothing pointing at its cause.
Two lessons for using this runner:
-
A healthy-looking server does not exonerate the engine. Probe with the operation that is actually stuck, not with
ping. -
The driver's own command log is the fastest way in. It showed an insert sitting for exactly
socketTimeoutMSagainst an idle engine, which is what turned a week-long-looking mystery into a five-line fix:MONGODB_LOG_COMMAND=debug MONGODB_LOG_PATH=stderr \ node tests/spec/run.js --skip 68 --limit 2 2>drv.log
--skip/--limit exist for exactly this: the collapse reduced to a
reproducible two-file window, which is what made it tractable.
Still worth recording the baseline on an otherwise idle machine, and do not
tighten --op-timeout-ms to make a run finish sooner — a tight budget turns
load into apparent engine failures, which is how I misdiagnosed this once
already.