Mongoose Schema Ref & Populate

Question

I would like to populate my database query with a set of documents from the same collection. Having never referenced before I can't tell if the error is in my model or in my query.

My current schema looks like this,

 var mongoose = require('mongoose'), Schema = mongoose.Schema, shortid = require('shortid') /* Calendar Schema */ var CalendarSchema = mongoose.Schema({ _id: { type: String, unique: true, 'default': shortid.generate }, title:String, mixin: [{_id: { type: String, ref: 'calendarlist' }}], notes: Array }) module.exports = mongoose.model('calendarlist', CalendarSchema) 

My sample docs looks like this,

 { "_id" : "mixtest", "mixin" : [ { "$ref" : "calendarlist", "$id" : "cVkKRkNtB-" } ], "title" : "mix test", "__v" : 3, "notes" : [] } and { "_id" : "cVkKRkNtB-", "title" : "found doc", "__v" : 3, "notes" : [] } 

and my query looks like this,

 calendarlist.find({}).populate('mixin').sort({ title: 1 }).exec(function(err, s) { if (err) {console.log(err) } console.log(s)}) 

Suggestions, tips or general clarifications totally appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

This link shows that the way to do reference is for example like below:

fans: [{ type: Number, ref: 'Person' }] .

Have you tried the following?:

mixin: [ { type: String, ref: 'calendarlist' }],

Also, the name of your model is 'calendarlist'. Is your collection called 'calendarlists'? Because 'Mongoose automatically looks for the plural version of your model name' per this link .