How to do inner reference with mongoose? - mongodb

Question

I want to do something like following code, but it failed.
var User = new Schema({
name: { type: String, required: true },
phone_number: { type: String, required: true },
modified: { type: Date, default: Date.now },
contacts: [{
user: { type : Schema.ObjectId, ref : 'User' }
}]
});
var UserModel = mongoose.model('User', User);
Is it able to achieve that purpose?

Answer 1

I think I used the wrong way to check it, actually it works.
Following is my test :
var mongoose = require('mongoose');
var Schema = mongoose.Schema;
mongoose.connect('localhost', 'contacts_test');
var User = new Schema({
name: { type: String, required: true },
phone_number: { type: String, required: true },
modified: { type: Date, default: Date.now },
contacts: [
{
user: { type: Schema.ObjectId, ref: 'User' }
}
]
});
var UserModel = mongoose.model('User', User);
mongoose.connection.on('open', function () {
var user1 = new UserModel({name: 'kos', phone_number: "003"});
user1.save(function (err) {
if (err) throw err;
var user2 = new UserModel({name: 'java', phone_number: "008"});
user2.contacts = [{user: user1._id}];
user2.save(function (err) {
UserModel.findById(user2._id)
.populate('contacts.user')
.exec(function (err, user) {
if (err) console.error(err.stack || err);
console.log('user name: ' + user.name);
console.error('contact of first result : ', user.contacts[0].user.name);
mongoose.connection.db.dropDatabase(function () {
mongoose.connection.close();
});
});
});
});
});