CODEWITHSUNDEEP
node.jsmongodbmongoose
Alex Antoine
Alex Antoine

Reputation: 63

Trying to populate mongoose schemas

This issue seems to be common but the answers for it vary. I am trying to populate these two models with their data.

const express = require('express');
const mongoose = require('mongoose');

const app = express();

app.listen(4000,()=>{
    console.log('server listening on port 4000')
});


mongoose.connect('mongodb://localhost:27017/testDB',{useNewUrlParser:true, useUnifiedTopology: true, useCreateIndex: true, useFindAndModify:true });

const UserSchema = new mongoose.Schema({
    username: String,
})

const PostSchema = new mongoose.Schema({
    content: String,
    author: {
      type: mongoose.Schema.Types.ObjectId,
      ref: 'User',
    }
  })

const Post = mongoose.model('Post', PostSchema);
const User = mongoose.model('User', UserSchema);

const user = new User({
    username: 'alex antoine',
})

const posts = new Post({
    content: 'I hope this works'
})

UserSchema.virtual('Post',{
    localField: '_id',
    foreignField: 'author',
    ref:'Post',
})

const populateUser = async(username)=>{

    const user = await User.findOne({username}).populate('posts');

    const userPopulated = await user.populate('Post').execPopulate();

    console.log(userPopulated);
}

const save = async()=>{

    user.save();
    posts.save();
}

save();

populateUser('alex antoine');

The response I received from this is

Populated User {
  posts: [],
  _id: 60dbe989fd1ab074d0ab0541,
  username: 'alex antoine',
  __v: 0
}

This seems to be a common issue that a lot of people had but none of their answers seems to work for me. Thanks in advance.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 159

Answers (2)

amda
amda

Reputation: 354

You're not declaring your user's posts as a virtual field right. Your PostSchema is correct, but your UserSchema should look like this:

const UserSchema = new mongoose.Schema({
  username: String
})

UserSchema.virtual('posts', {
  ref: Posts,
  localfield: '_id',
  foreignField: 'author'
});

This way, when dealing with a user document, you can populate its posts:

user.populate('posts').execPopulate();

Upvotes: 1

OBrien Evance
OBrien Evance

Reputation: 1025

result User.findOne({username}).populate('posts').exec();

// At the exec() try using execPopulate()

Then at the ref add the required: true` option

Upvotes: 0

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