Question

I need to query the following data from mongodb:
Project has many Regions, a Region has many Links

Here’s the data:

{ "_id" : ObjectId( "4f26a74f9416090000000003" ),
  "description" : "A Test Project",
  "regions" : [ 
    { "title" : "North America",
      "_id" : ObjectId( "4f26a74f9416090000000004" ),
      "links" : [ 
        { "title" : "A Really Cool Link" } ] }, 
    { "description" : "That Asia Place",
      "title" : "Asia",
      "_id" : ObjectId( "4f26b7283378ab0000000003" ),
      "links" : [] }, 
    { "description" : "That South America Place",
      "title" : "South America",
      "_id" : ObjectId( "4f26e46b53f2f90000000003" ),
      "links" : [] }, 
    { "description" : "That Australia Place",
      "title" : "Australia",
      "_id" : ObjectId( "4f26ea504fb2210000000003" ),
      "links" : [] } ],
  "title" : "Test" }

Here’s my model setup:

// mongoose
var Link = new Schema({
    title       : String
  , href        : String
  , description : String
});

var Region = new Schema({
    title       : String
  , description : String
  , links       : [Link]
});

var Project = new Schema({
    title       : String
  , description : String
  , regions       : [Region]
});

mongoose.model('Link', Link);
mongoose.model('Region', Region);
mongoose.model('Project', Project);

var Link    = mongoose.model('Link');
var Region  = mongoose.model('Region');
var Project = mongoose.model('Project');

The query that I’m struggling with is returning a single region object matched on ID. I’m fine returning all of the regions with all of their respective links, but limiting it to the ID of just one region has been a problem.

Here’s my broken route that I’m working with:

app.get('/projects/:id/regions/:region_id', function(req, res){
  Project.findById(req.param('id'), function(err, project) {
    if (!err) {
      project.regions.findById(req.params.region_id, function(err, region) {
        if (!err) {
          res.render('project_regions', {
            locals: {
              title: project.title,
              project: project
            }
          });
        }
      });
    } else {
      res.redirect('/')
    }
  });
});

I know the above will not work because the object returned by “findById” does not respond to findByID, but it illustrates what I’m trying to do. I tried doing a custom query, but it always returned the entire document, not the single Region that I wanted.

I also tried querying directly off the Region Schema, but that is not returning any results. I assume to query from a Schema that’s a subdocument I would have to contextually provide what the parent document is.

In other words, the following does not return an “region” object with data:

app.get('/projects/:id/regions/:region_id', function(req, res){
  Region.findById(req.params.region_id, function(err, region) {
    if (!err) {
      res.render('project_regions_show', {
        locals: {
          title: "test",
          region: region
        }
      });
    } else {
      res.redirect('/')
    }
  });
});

Appreciate any help.

Answer 1

I’d recommend extracting the regions into a separate collection with a “projectId: ObjectId()” field. That may give you the querying flexibility you’re looking for.