How to drop or delete a collection in MongoDB?

So either of these are valid ways to do it:

mongo <dbname> --eval 'db.<collection>.drop()'#     ^^^^^^^^            ^^^^^^^^^^^^

db.<collection>.drop()#  ^^^^^^^^^^^^

For example, for a collection mycollection in a database mydb you would say:

mongo mydb --eval 'db.mycollection.drop()'

db.mycollection.drop()

This is the way I fully tested it, creating a database mydb with a collection hello.

• Create db mydb:

  > use mydbswitched to db mydb

• Create a collection mycollection:

  > db.createCollection("mycollection"){ "ok" : 1 }

• Show all the collections there:

  > db.getCollectionNames()[ "mycollection", "system.indexes" ]

• Insert some dummy data:

  > db.mycollection.insert({'a':'b'})WriteResult({ "nInserted" : 1 })

• Make sure it was inserted:

  > db.mycollection.find(){ "_id" : ObjectId("55849b22317df91febf39fa9"), "a" : "b" }

• Delete the collection and make sure it is not present any more:

  > db.mycollection.drop()true> db.getCollectionNames()[ "system.indexes" ]

This also works (I am not repeating the previous commands, since it is just about recreating the database and the collection):

$ mongo mydb --eval 'db.mycollection.drop()'MongoDB shell version: 2.6.10connecting to: mydbtrue$

To drop a collection 'users' of database 'mydb':

$ use mydb$ db.users.drop()

--eval "db.getCollection('collection').drop()"