create object parent which nested children in mongoose

Question

i want to create 1 objects nested document like:

Children:

chil1:

{ name: 'Mimi',                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
        parent: 537258f63eb92b3201b65e56,                                                                                                                                                                                                        
        _id: 537258f63eb92b3201b65e57,                                                                                                                                                                                                           
        __v: 0 },   

chil2

{ name: 'Kiki',                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
    parent: 537258f63eb92b3201b65e56,                                                                                                                                                                                                        
    _id: 537258f63eb92b3201b65e58,                                                                                                                                                                                                           
    __v: 0 } 

Parent:(What i want)

[ { name: 'John',                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
    _id: 537258f63eb92b3201b65e56,                                                                                                                                                                                                           
    __v: 0,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
    children: [ { name: 'Mimi',                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
    parent: 537258f63eb92b3201b65e56,                                                                                                                                                                                                        
    _id: 537258f63eb92b3201b65e57,                                                                                                                                                                                                           
    __v: 0 },                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
  Children:[ { name: 'Mimi',                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
    parent: 537258f63eb92b3201b65e56,                                                                                                                                                                                                        
    _id: 537258f63eb92b3201b65e57,                                                                                                                                                                                                           
    __v: 0 },                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
  { name: 'Kiki',                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
    parent: 537258f63eb92b3201b65e56,                                                                                                                                                                                                        
    _id: 537258f63eb92b3201b65e58,                                                                                                                                                                                                           
    __v: 0 } ]

is possible to create data on mongooese with nodejs(express)? it is similar this question mongoose: How to insert a single subdocument - not an array but in this case, the children only stored id of child, not all the object ? Here is my model file:

const schema:mongoose.Schema = new mongoose.Schema({
    owner: {
        type: mongoose.Schema.Types.ObjectId,
        ref: 'user'
    },
    name: String,
    parentCategory: {
        type: mongoose.Schema.Types.ObjectId,
        ref: 'parent',
    },
    childCategories: [{
        type: mongoose.Schema.Types.ObjectId,
        ref: 'child',
    }], 
});

Normally result :

 { name: 'John',                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
            _id: 537258f63eb92b3201b65e56,                                                                                                                                                                                                           
            __v: 0,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
            children: [Chil1_id, Chil2_id]
}

Answer 1

Did you try populate?

Here is a simple example:

Parent.find().populate("children").exec(...)

As long as you specify the children's ref to a model, mongoose is smart enough to join the children with the parents.