CPSC 350 - Applications of Databases - Spring 2026

Assignment #8

Possible experience: +40XP

Due: Saturday, April 25

The DB World Tour®, stop #3 of 4: MongoDB

In the third installment of your DB World Tour project, you'll add the next fourth of your website, backed by a MongoDB database.

Your topic and Assignment #8

Identify some different aspect of your assignment #6 & #7 topic that would lend itself well to what MongoDB provides: a schema-less (or "schema-flexible") structure. Every document it stores is ultimately a dictionary with key/value pairs, and the values can in turn be nested lists and/or dicts at your discretion.

As before, pick something interesting and non-trivial, but not exhaustive.

Mongo databases

Start by choosing a Mongo database name for the cpsc server, with your UMW Net ID as part of it. For instance, horses_jwilli28 and sdavis17db are both acceptable names.

Note: in Mongo, you don't have to execute any kind of separate "create database" command; instead, you simply "use" the database as if it already exists, and it will. (On the mongosh, the syntax is "use myDatabaseName". In Python, you'll simply access the value of a (new) key from your MongoClient dictionary-like object.)

A note about jerks

Don't be a jerk. Leave other people's databases alone, and only work in yours. You shouldn't change their data in any way, or even look at it. Nobody likes a nosy jerk.

Assignment #8 requirements

Your goal in this project is to integrate MongoDB into your master database tour website. I am very flexible as to how you do this. If you have a creative way to integrate MongoDB into your site that is different from what I've described below, absolutely do that instead of what I've outlined! Creativity is good. Only mimic what I have if you can't think of anything else creative.

The way my own website works is as follows:

  1. On the main page, I display an abbreviated list of the names of objects in your Mongo database. ("Name" just means "some identifiable, human-readable key." I use the title of the crime show episode in my example below. Substitute whatever is appropriate in your case.) I also show select other information where I feel this enhances the user experience (I include the name of the overall crime show, and also the season and episode numbers.)
  2. Immediately beneath this list I have a form in which the user can type key/value pairs and filter the list based on them. When the button is pressed, the page should refresh and display only documents that have that key/value pair as a top-level attribute.
  3. The names of the objects are hyperlinks, each of which will direct the user to an "edit page." On the edit page, the user can change the values of any of the fields (except the name), and press a "save changes" button to get those changes to persist in the Mongo database. After the button is pressed, the site redirects the user back to the main page, with a friendly "(name of object) updated successfully!" message.
  4. Alternatively, the user can instead interact with a separate form that allows him/her to add a new key/value pair to the object in question. The user is then be redirected back to the main page again.

Example

Here's what my new assignment-#8-compatible landing page looks like (see bottom-left):

And here's my "edit" page for Mongo:

Other cool ideas

Consider adding one or more of the following features:

  1. Add multiple filters on the main page instead of just one. When more than one is used, only documents with key/value pairs matching all the filter criteria should appear in the list.
  2. Allow users to also filter on the existence of a field, rather than on a specific field value. (In my example, I should be able to say "show all episodes that have a 'courtroom verdict' key at all," instead of only being able to say "show all episodes that have a 'courtroom verdict' of 'not guilty.')
  3. Add a "clear filter" button which will eliminate all the filter criteria and refresh the page with all documents again eligible to appear in the list.
  4. Implement "smart filter" functionality, such that instead of the entire value having to match what the user types, only part of it needs to match. (In the example above, for instance, if I filtered on a "romance" key with value "flirt," it should match the Poison episode.)
  5. Implement "ranged filter" functionality, such that for numeric values, the user can specify min and max values and obtain only documents whose values fall within that range. (In the example above, the user would effectively be able to say "find all episodes whose 'Stephen rating' is between 6 and 9," for instance.)
  6. Add "delete" buttons next to each field on the "edit" page, such that when the user clicks on one, that key/value pair is eliminated from that Mongo object.
  7. Incorporate a sensible way to enter, edit, and filter nested structure within a document. In other words, the values of key/value pairs no longer must be only strings, but can instead be lists of strings or dictionaries with their own nested key/value pairs.

Turning it in

Send me an email with subject line "CPSC/DATA 350 Assignment #8 turn-in". In the body of the email, simply paste the link to your website.

Getting help

Come to office hours, or send me email with subject line "CPSC/DATA 350 Assignment #8 help!!"