mongoose-autorefs

Mongoose plugin for automatic updating of referenced documents

Usage

Add autoref as a plugin to a schema, passing in an options array. For example:

var autoref = require('mongoose-autorefs');
var mongoose = require('mongoose');

var companySchema = new mongoose.Schema({
    _id: ObjectId,
    name: String,
    employees: [{type: ObjectId, ref: 'Person'}],
    interviewees: [{ type: ObjectId, ref: 'Person' }]
});
companySchema.plugin(autoref, [
    'employees.employer',
    'interviewees.interviewers'
]);
var Company = mongoose.model('Company', companySchema);

var personSchema = new mongoose.Schema({
    _id: ObjectId,
    name: String,
    partner: { type: ObjectId, ref: 'Person' }, // 1-1 self
    friends: [{ type: ObjectId, ref: 'Person' }], // *-* self
    employer: { type: ObjectId, ref: 'Company' }, // 1-*
    interviewers: [{ type: ObjectId, ref: 'Company' }] // *-*
});
personSchema.plugin(autoref, [
    'partner.partner',
    'friends.friends',
    'employer.employees',
    'interviewers.interviewees'
]);
var Person = mongoose.model('Person', personSchema);

The autoref behaviour is implemented using mongoose's post middlewares for save, findOneAndUpdate and update. For example, here are two ways of saving a Person document:

var autoref = require('mongoose-autorefs');

var person = new Person({name: 'Mike'});
person.save(function(err, mike){
    // When you get here, autoref has also completed.
    // Do some stuff
});

Person.findByIdAndUpdate(person._id, person, { upsert: true, setDefaultsOnInsert: true, new: true }).exec(function(err, mike){
    // When you get here, autoref has also completed.
    // Do some stuff
});

mongoose-autorefs uses another npm package mongoose-populator to fully populate documents in the autoref hierarchy.

The options array

This array defines one or more paths to referenced documents to update on a save.

In the above example, when saving a Company document with an employee, autoref will automatically update the referenced Person document, setting it's employer field to the _id of the saved Company.

This will also work for arrays and arbitrarily nested documents.

IMPORTANT NOTE

Internally, autoref saves the refs using findOneAndUpdate, so autorefs do not cascade updates. If you want to save the same reference to multiple places, provide a path for each in your plugin config.

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