mongoose-type-relation

A field-type for Mongoose schemas that allows easy relationships between models.

This field-type will populate external model references. If you update either side of the the relationship, it will update it on both.

usage

var mongoose = require('mongoose');
var Relation = require('mongoose-type-relation');

The module exports it's field-type, but also adds it to mongoose.SchemaTypes as mongoose.SchemaTypes.Relation, like other fieldtypes.

example

var UserSchema = new mongoose.Schema({
    authored: [{type:Relation, ref:'Post', fieldref: 'author'}],
    edited: [{type:Relation, ref:'Post', fieldref:'editors'}]
});
var User = mongoose.model('User', UserSchema);
 
var PostSchema = new mongoose.Schema({
    author: {type:Relation, ref:'User'},
    editors: [{type:Relation, ref:'User'}]
});
var Post = mongoose.model('Post', PostSchema);

In this example, if you add Posts to User.edited or User.authored, they will be added to the Post's corresponding fields and vice-versa. You still need to save all the records involved.

You should always add relationships with the whole object:

var post = new Post();
var author = new User();
var editor1 = new User();
var editor2 = new User();
 
post.author = author;
post.editors = [editor1, editor2];

Using plain _id triggers "manual mode", meaning that you are manually managing the relationship (like standard mongoose ObjectIds.)

Have a look at the tests for more examples.

populate

Since ths uses standard mongoose references over ObjectIds, you can fill record's children with populate().