Vinny, thanks ... I understand a bit more. Perhaps a question for you then, have you considered storing your data in a more traditional manner ... Which would be a parent - child relationship where your column wise detail data actually is represented a rows in another collection ? That way your query can actually single out no zero rows ?
Or is there some driving business or design reason you decided on the flat design for your data ?
( most of the tutorials focus on a data design where each occurance of a data item is stored as a row ).
Not sure if that helps. Have a great Saturday.
Best,
Bruce