I attempted to use mongo_validate_ns() to determine if e.g. mydb.frog already existed, but apparently the routine only validates whether or not the ns string is well formed, not whether or not the db/collection combo already exist under the mongo server.

I looked through the source and (still pretty sketchy) documentation and couldn't find anything that either did the equivalent of "show dbs" or "show collections" or (more reasonably) mongo_exists_ns() – a routine that returns a list of the existing mongodb dbs and their collections or a routine that takes a well-formed ns and tells you if THAT collection exists already.

Possibly for the future?

rgb