Mongoose Reference for simple code reference values? - mongodb

Question

I'm designing a MongoDB schema to save a fairly large/nested document. I'm planning on embedding as much as possible into a single document, but wasn't sure what to do with code/lookup values. For example, if we have a code table representing "priority", with the possible values being:
low
medium
high
Is this something I should use a Mongoose reference for, and create a simple document to hold priority, eg something like:
var PrioritySchema = new Schema({
description: String
});
This would then be referenced with something like the following:
var AnotherSchema = new Schema({
name: String,
active: Boolean,
priority: { type: String, ref: 'Priority' }
});
Or is this overkill? The thing I want to avoid is directly storing these "descriptions" in the main/overall model, then having a requirement change sometime in the future. For example, someone decides that instead of "medium", we need to call it "somewhat". In that situation, I assume I'd be stuck doing some sort of data migration?

Answer 1

you can do this :
var PrioritySchema = new Schema({
description: String
});
and this
var AnotherSchema = new Schema({
name: String,
active: Boolean,
priority: { PrioritySchema }
});
But if you want what you described further I would advise you to do this instead :
var AnotherSchema = new Schema({
name: String,
active: Boolean,
priority: { type: Schema.Types.ObjectId, ref: 'Priority' } // see this : Schema.Types.ObjectId != String
});
Let's make it simple if you need those values to be cross-documents you need to use reference. If the values are only existing because of the parent document then you can choose embing.
For more information read this :
http://mongoosejs.com/docs/2.7.x/docs/embedded-documents.html
FYI : I used to struggle a lot with this. If you follow the path of embing all nested sub-document you will face a lot of "What Why I can't do that :'(. At the end I choosed the referencing way I felt more confortable with it. embing != referencing.