mongoose .find() method returns object with unwanted properties

Question

so, I've been working with mongoose for some time and I found some really weird stuff going on. It would be great if someone could enlighten me.

The thing is, when using the .find() method of mongoose, the object I get as response is full of properties I don't know where It came from (I'm guessing they are built-in properties, but whatever) and I want to iterate only through the properties I .select(). Got it? No? ok... explaining better:

I have my schema and model declared:

var mySchema = mongoose.Schema({
  name: String,
  prop1: String,
  prop2: String,
  prop3: String
})
var myModel = DB.model('myDataBase', mySchema)

Then I want to find a document with the name, let's say, John and retrieve all but the 'name' field, so I go:

myModel.find({name: 'John'}, '-name', function(err, results){
  log(results[0])
}

and log(results[0]) logs

{ prop1: 'one',
  prop2: 'two',
  prop3: 'three' }

So far, so good. But the problems is, now I want to iterate through these properties and check one by one, and I don't know for sure how many 'props' each result will have, so I wanted to do something like:

for(var key in results[0]){
  log(key)
}

So, I'm hoping it will log 'prop1', 'prop2' and 'prop3', but no! Ok, I get props 1, 2 and 3, but also I get a lots of other properties and functions like: isNew, error, _maxListeners, _doc, etc. Not only these extras properties, I also get the 'name' property, the one I excluded from the selection (and it was excluded, like shown in the first log). Weird huh?

But wait! There's more! I've searched online and found some people saying "Dude, when iterating through object properties use the hasOwnProperty method!". So there I went:

for (var key in results[0]){
  if (results[0].hasOwnProperty(key)) log(key)
}

the log result is a few properties (to be specific: $__, isNew, error, _maxListeners, _doc, _pres, _posts, save, _events) and doesnt include any of the props I wanted in the first place.

My question is, how can I iterate through only prop 1, 2 and 3, excluding these, I don't know, built-in properties and the one I explicitly excluded in the parameters? (ps: I was thinking of a solution that doesnt involve having to convert my object into an array, if thats possible)

Also, not a question per se, but for curiosity, where does these properties come from? Why do they appear in the for loop and not when I log the object? Why the property I excluded ('-name') also appears in the for loop? What the hell is hasOwnProperty for if it doesnt recognize the properties that were just logged?

Thanks for your time and help! Bye!

Answer 1

Alternatively to Kevin B's answer, you can pass {lean: true} as an option:

myModel.find({name: 'John'}, '-name', {lean: true}, function(err, results){
  log(results[0])
}

In MongoDB, the documents are saved simply as objects. When Mongoose retrieves them, it casts them into Mongoose documents. In doing so it adds all those keys that are being included in your for loop. This is what allows you to use all the document methods. If you won't be using any of these, lean is a great option as it skips that entire process, increasing query speed. Potentially 3x as fast.