## MongoDB Documentation, Release 3.0.4 

## Database Systems and Processes 

• To indicate the entire database system, use “MongoDB,” not mongo or Mongo. 

• To indicate the database process or a server instance, use mongod or mongos . Refer to these as “processes” or “instances.” Reserve “database” for referring to a database structure, i.e., the structure that holds collections and refers to a group of files on disk. 

## Distributed System Terms 

• Refer to partitioned systems as “sharded clusters.” Do not use shard clusters or sharded systems. 

• Refer to configurations that run with replication as “replica sets” (or “master/slave deployments”) rather than “clusters” or other variants. 

## Data Structure Terms 

• “document” refers to “rows” or “records” in a MongoDB database. Potential confusion with “JSON Docu- ments.” 

Do not refer to documents as “objects,” because drivers (and MongoDB) do not preserve the order of fields when fetching data. If the order of objects matter, use an array. 

• “field” refers to a “key” or “identifier” of data within a MongoDB document. 

• “value” refers to the contents of a “field”. 

• “embedded document” describes a nested document. 

## Other Terms 

• Use example.net (and .org or .com if needed) for all examples and samples. 

• Hyphenate “map-reduce” in order to avoid ambiguous reference to the command name. Do not camel-case. 

## Notes on Specific Features 

• Geo-Location 

1. While MongoDB is capable of storing coordinates in embedded documents, in practice, users should only store coordinates in arrays. (See: DOCS-41$^{35}$.) 

## MongoDB Documentation Practices and Processes 

This document provides an overview of the practices and processes. 

## Commits 

When relevant, include a Jira case identifier in a commit message. Reference documentation cases when applicable, but feel free to reference other cases from jira.mongodb.org$^{36}$. 

Err on the side of creating a larger number of discrete commits rather than bundling large set of changes into one commit. 

