How do I update/upsert a document in Mongoose?

Question

Perhaps it's the time, perhaps it's me drowning in sparse documentation and not being able to wrap my head around the concept of updating in Mongoose :)

Here's the deal:

I have a contact schema and model (shortened properties):

var mongoose = require('mongoose'),     Schema = mongoose.Schema;  var mongooseTypes = require("mongoose-types"),     useTimestamps = mongooseTypes.useTimestamps;   var ContactSchema = new Schema({     phone: {         type: String,         index: {             unique: true,             dropDups: true         }     },     status: {         type: String,         lowercase: true,         trim: true,         default: 'on'     } }); ContactSchema.plugin(useTimestamps); var Contact = mongoose.model('Contact', ContactSchema); 

I receive a request from the client, containing the fields I need and use my model thusly:

mongoose.connect(connectionString); var contact = new Contact({     phone: request.phone,     status: request.status }); 

And now we reach the problem:

1. If I call contact.save(function(err){...}) I'll receive an error if the contact with the same phone number already exists (as expected - unique)
2. I can't call update() on contact, since that method does not exist on a document
3. If I call update on the model:
   Contact.update({phone:request.phone}, contact, {upsert: true}, function(err{...})
   I get into an infinite loop of some sorts, since the Mongoose update implementation clearly doesn't want an object as the second parameter.
4. If I do the same, but in the second parameter I pass an associative array of the request properties {status: request.status, phone: request.phone ...} it works - but then I have no reference to the specific contact and cannot find out its createdAt and updatedAt properties.

So the bottom line, after all I tried: given a document contact, how do I update it if it exists, or add it if it doesn't?

Thanks for your time.

Answer 1

Mongoose now supports this natively with findOneAndUpdate (calls MongoDB findAndModify).

The upsert = true option creates the object if it doesn't exist. defaults to false.

var query = {'username': req.user.username}; req.newData.username = req.user.username;  MyModel.findOneAndUpdate(query, req.newData, {upsert: true}, function(err, doc) {     if (err) return res.send(500, {error: err});     return res.send('Succesfully saved.'); }); 

---

In older versions Mongoose does not support these hooks with this method:

• defaults
• setters
• validators
• middleware

Answer 2

I just burned a solid 3 hours trying to solve the same problem. Specifically, I wanted to "replace" the entire document if it exists, or insert it otherwise. Here's the solution:

var contact = new Contact({   phone: request.phone,   status: request.status });  // Convert the Model instance to a simple object using Model's 'toObject' function // to prevent weirdness like infinite looping... var upsertData = contact.toObject();  // Delete the _id property, otherwise Mongo will return a "Mod on _id not allowed" error delete upsertData._id;  // Do the upsert, which works like this: If no Contact document exists with  // _id = contact.id, then create a new doc using upsertData. // Otherwise, update the existing doc with upsertData Contact.update({_id: contact.id}, upsertData, {upsert: true}, function(err{...}); 

I created an issue on the Mongoose project page requesting that info about this be added to the docs.