Connecting to the replica set to query and insert data using a Python client

Refer to the Connecting to the single node using a Python client recipe as it describes how to set up and install PyMongo, the Python driver for MongoDB. Additionally, a replica set must be up and running. Refer to the Starting multiple instances as part of a replica set recipe for details on how to start the replica set.

You will notice that, in this script, we instantiated the mongo client by giving a list of hosts instead of a single host. As of version 3.0, the pymongo driver's MongoClient() class can accept either a list of hosts or a single host during initialization and deprecate MongoReplicaSetClient(). The client will attempt to connect to the first host in the list, and if successful, will be able to determine the other nodes in the replica set. We are also passing the replicaSet='repSetTest' parameter exclusively, ensuring that the client checks whether the connected node is a part of this replica set.

Once connected, we perform normal database operations such as selecting the test database, dropping the repTest collection, and inserting a single document into the collection.

Following this, we enter a conditional for loop, iterating five times. Each time, we fetch the record, display it, and sleep for three seconds. While the script is in this loop, we shut down the primary node in the replica set as mentioned in step 4. We should see an output similar to this:

Fetching record: {u'age': u'30', u'_id': ObjectId('5558bfaa0640fd1923fce1a1'), u'name': u'Foo'}
Fetching record: {u'age': u'30', u'_id': ObjectId('5558bfaa0640fd1923fce1a1'), u'name': u'Foo'}
Fetching record: {u'age': u'30', u'_id': ObjectId('5558bfaa0640fd1923fce1a1'), u'name': u'Foo'}
Could not connect to primary
Fetching record: {u'age': u'30', u'_id': ObjectId('5558bfaa0640fd1923fce1a1'), u'name': u'Foo'}

In the preceding output, the client gets disconnected from the primary node midway. However, very soon, a new primary node is selected by the remaining nodes and the mongo client is able to resume the connection.