Mongoose: Is field set in the database?

Question

I have a Mongoose schema with a property that holds an array of strings. Something like:

var schema = mongoose.schema({
  myProp: [String]
})
mongoose.model('MyModel', schema);

Now, when I load a MyModel document and check its .myProp property, I get an empty array (thanks to Mongoose's casting, I think), even if the document in Mongo has no myProp field.

How can I distinguish from my javascript between the document in mongo having no myProp field, and having a myProp field whose value is an empty array, given that doc.myProp returns an empty array in both cases?

Answer 1

You could always use the lean() option when querying, which returns exactly what is in Mongo without creating an instance of the Mongoose model.

Model.find().lean().exec(function (err, docs) {
  // docs should be identical to your mongo collection
});