Individual nested subdocument Mongoose - node.js

Question

I'm Trying to embed a subdocument into my main document,like this:
This is the main document.js
var mongoose = require('../../db/mongodb.connector'),
Schema = mongoose.Schema;
require('./document.model');
var Document= mongoose.model('Document');
require('./alert.model');
var Alert = mongoose.model('Alert');
var userSchema = new Schema({
name: { type: String }
created: { type: Date, default: Date.now()},
alerts: {type: Schema.ObjectId,ref: 'Alert'},
documents: [{type: Schema.ObjectId,ref: 'Document'}],
});
module.exports = mongoose.model('User', userSchema);
This is the embed document.js
var mongoose = require('../../db/mongodb.connector'),
Schema = mongoose.Schema;
var alertsSchema = new Schema({
push: {type: String, default: "true"},
email: {type: String, default: "false"},
sms: {type: String, default: "false"}
});
module.exports = mongoose.model('Alert', alertsSchema);
When I Insert a new User document like this:
exports.insertUser = function (userData, res) {
var user = new User({
name: userData.name,
alerts: {push: "true", email:"false", sms: "false"}
});
user.save...
...
The returned data is this:
{ name: 'name',
documents: [],
created: 2017-04-14T10:22:05.612Z
}
The problem is that I don't know if I'm doing correctly the sintax of embed document because the insert doesn't return any error but the alerts object doesn't appear into the inserted new document.
What would be wrong?

Answer 1

You are doing it wrong. You need to first save the alert document and then use its id in the user document.
let alertDoc = await new Alert({push: "true", email:"false", sms: "false"}).save();
// now use the id in the user doc
await new User({name: userData.name,alerts: alertDoc._id }).save()
In case you want to embed the whole document instead of just storing the ref. You could modify schema of user model. Define your schema like this.
var alertsSchema = new Schema({
push: {type: String, default: "true"},
email: {type: String, default: "false"},
sms: {type: String, default: "false"}
});
....
var userSchema = new Schema({
name: { type: String }
created: { type: Date, default: Date.now()},
alerts: alertsSchema,
documents: [{type: Schema.ObjectId,ref: 'Document'}],
});
....
// now this should work
var user = new User({
name: "<some name>",
alerts: {push: "true", email:"false", sms: "false"}
});

Answer 2

There is a small issue in userSchema. From your schema definition, it looks like you want to store only references to alerts and documents. The right syntax here would be alerts: {type: Schema.Types.ObjectId,ref: 'Alert'}. Please notice that extra Types in it.
Another issue here is, you are trying to store complete alert object inside user document. Mongoose can't allow that, as in your schema, you have told mongoose to save only references to the alert document. So what you need to do here is, create an alert document, get it's _id and then store it in alert field of user document.
Whenever you want to fetch the complete user schema, you can just populate alert and documents.
Hope this answer improves your understanding of how mongoose schema works.