Mongoose not populating previously saved document with reference to newly saved document - mongodb

Question

all.
I am writing a MEAN stack application, using Mongoose (4.0.6) with Node/Express to interface with MongoDB, and I am running into difficulty populating saved documents when I later save new documents that the existing document should have a reference to. Specifically, in the app I have a user create an instance of a company before creating their admin account for that company, so when the user registers him/herself as an admin, I'd like the company document to populate its users array with the new user.
Here are my schemas for company and user:
User.js...
var mongoose = require('mongoose');
var Schema = mongoose.Schema;
var ObjectId = Schema.Types.ObjectId;
var userSchema = new Schema({
first_name: { type: String, required: '{PATH} is required!' },
last_name: { type: String, required: '{PATH} is required!' },
username: { type: String, required: '{PATH} is required!', lowercase: true, unique: true },
password: { type: String, required: '{PATH} is required!' },
roles: { type: [String] },
company: { type: ObjectId, ref: 'Company', required: true },
db_permissions: [{ type: ObjectId, ref: 'DataConnection' }],
created_by: { type: ObjectId, ref: 'User' },
created_at: { type: Date, default: Date.now },
updated_at: [{ type: Date, default: Date.now }]
});
var User = mongoose.model('User', userSchema);
module.exports = {
User: User
};
Company.js...
var mongoose = require('mongoose');
var Schema = mongoose.Schema;
var ObjectId = Schema.Types.ObjectId;
var companySchema = new Schema({
name: { type: String, uppercase: true, required: '{PATH} is required!', unique: true },
industry: { type: String, required: '{PATH} is required!' },
phone: { type: String, required: '{PATH} is required!' },
address_line_1: { type: String, uppercase: true, required: '{PATH} is required!' },
address_line_2: { type: String, uppercase: true },
city: { type: String, uppercase: true, required: '{PATH} is required!' },
state_prov: { type: String, uppercase: true, required: '{PATH} is required!' },
postal_code: { type: String, required: '{PATH} is required!' },
country: { type: String, required: '{PATH} is required!' },
logo_url: String,
users: [{ type: ObjectId, ref: 'User' }],
data_connections: [{ type: ObjectId, ref: 'DataConnection' }],
created_at: { type: Date, default: Date.now },
updated_at: [{ type: Date, default: Date.now }]
});
var Company = mongoose.model('Company', companySchema);
module.exports = {
Company: Company
};
Here is the code in my controller:
User.create(userData, function(err, user) {
if(err) {
if(err.toString().indexOf('E11000') > -1) {
err = new Error('Duplicate email');
}
res.status(400);
return res.send({ reason:err.toString() });
}
console.log('company id: ' + user.company);
Company.findById(user.company)
.populate({path: 'users'})
.exec(function (err, company) {
if (err) return handleError(err);
console.log(company.name + '\'s users now includes ' + company.users);
});
res.send(user);
The company (e.g. TEST53) saves to the database correctly with an empty users array:
{
"_id": "55ae421bf469f1b97bb52d5a",
"name": "TEST53",
"industry": "Construction",
"phone": "2352626254",
"city": "GDFGD",
"country": "United States",
"address_line_1": "DSGDFGH",
"state_prov": "GF",
"postal_code": "45645",
"logo_url": "",
"__v": 0,
"updated_at": [
"2015-07-21T12:59:07.609Z"
],
"created_at": "2015-07-21T12:59:07.597Z",
"data_connections": [],
"users": []
}
Then when I create the user, it saves correctly:
{
"_id": "55ae4238f469f1b97bb52d5b",
"username": "test53#test.com",
"password": "$2a$12$ZB6L1NCZEhLfjs99yUUNNOQEknyQmX6nP2BxBvo1uZGlvk9LlKGFu",
"company": "55ae421bf469f1b97bb52d5a",
"first_name": "Test53",
"last_name": "Admin",
"__v": 0,
"updated_at": [
"2015-07-21T12:59:36.925Z"
],
"created_at": "2015-07-21T12:59:36.550Z",
"db_permissions": [],
"roles": [
"admin"
]
}
And I can see that the correct ObjectId prints to the console for user.company:
company id: 55ae421bf469f1b97bb52d5a
But the company's users array doesn't populate with the user's id, and the console.log inside the .exec function prints 'TEST53's users now includes '.
I have tried several ways of wiring this up, with just 'users' instead of { path: 'users' }, writing a function that pushes the user into the array, using .run instead of .exec, but so far without success.
Is there something obvious I'm missing? Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Answer 1

You're not actually adding the user to the company.
Try this:
Company.findById(user.company, function (err, company) {
if (err) return handleError(err);
// Add the user to the company's list of users.
company.users.push(user);
// Need to save again.
company.save(function(err) {
if (err) return handleError(err);
console.log(company.name + '\'s users now includes ' + company.users);
});
});
res.send(user);
It seems to me that all you want to do is to update the Company model to add the user, as opposed to actually use the (populated) Company document as a response, so I left out an additional Company.findById(...).populate(...) call.