Mongoose populate after save

Question

I cannot manually or automatically populate the creator field on a newly saved object ... the only way I can find is to re-query for the objects I already have which I would hate to do.

This is the setup:

var userSchema = new mongoose.Schema({      name: String, }); var User = db.model('User', userSchema);  var bookSchema = new mongoose.Schema({   _creator: { type: mongoose.Schema.Types.ObjectId, ref: 'User' },   description: String, }); var Book = db.model('Book', bookSchema); 

This is where I am pulling my hair

var user = new User(); user.save(function(err) {     var book = new Book({         _creator: user,     });     book.save(function(err){         console.log(book._creator); // is just an object id         book._creator = user; // still only attaches the object id due to Mongoose magic         console.log(book._creator); // Again: is just an object id         // I really want book._creator to be a user without having to go back to the db ... any suggestions?     }); }); 

EDIT: latest mongoose fixed this issue and added populate functionality, see the new accepted answer.

Answer 1

You should be able to use the Model's populate function to do this: http://mongoosejs.com/docs/api.html#model_Model.populate In the save handler for book, instead of:

book._creator = user; 

you'd do something like:

Book.populate(book, {path:"_creator"}, function(err, book) { ... }); 

Probably too late an answer to help you, but I was stuck on this recently, and it might be useful for others.

Answer 2

The solution for me was to use execPopulate, like so

const t = new MyModel(value) return t.save().then(t => t.populate('my-path').execPopulate())