Using MongooseJS to Changing Mongodb _id to BSON UUID for ref - node.js

Question

I currently use MongooseJS to change "_id" for each of my collections to a BSON UUID. On top of this I use a virtual to "id" to convert "_id" to its string equivalent. It works pretty good and gives me the benefit of using a UUID for the "_id" and not store it as a string which wastes disk resources.
Here is a snippet of code to show how this is done
const uuid = require("uuid-mongodb");
require("mongoose-uuid2")(mongoose);
let schema_options = {
"id": false,
"toObject": {
"getters": true,
"virtuals": true
},
"toJSON": {
"getters": true,
"virtuals": true,
"transform"(doc, ret) {
delete ret._id;
}
} };
let schema = new Schema(
{
"_id": {
"type": UUID,
"default": uuid.v4,
"required": true
},
"code": {
"type": String,
"required": true,
"unique": true
},
"name": {
"type": String,
"required": true
}
},
schema_options);
schema.virtual("id").get(function() {
return uuid.from(this._id).toString();
});
schema.virtual("id").set(function(uuid_string) {
this._id = uuid.from(uuid_string);
});
However, if I add a "ref" to another collection as with
schema.add({
"test_references": {
"type": [
{
"type": mongoose.Types.UUID,
"ref": "test_references"
}
],
"required": true
}
});
I get a hash representation of the BSON UUID. Is there a way to make MongooseJS during a get operation to show these refs as UUID string representations
i.e. - I expect this "104e0f2e-3b54-405b-ba81-e87c5eb9f263" but get this "EE4PLjtUQFu6geh8XrnyYw=="
Note:: If this is the incorrect forum for this post, please let me know and I will move this to the correct forum immediately

Answer 1

After some more research, I was able to apply a transform to the returned value.
This looks like the following:
this.schema.options.toJSON.transform = function(doc, ret, option) {
let items = [];
delete ret._id;
ret.items.forEach((item) => {
items.push(mongoose.uuid.from(item).toString());
});
ret.items = items;
return ret;
};
It is not ideal to look through all the items in the array but it is the best I could find in my research