Node.js – Creating Relationships with Mongoose

It sounds like you’re looking to try the new populate functionality in Mongoose.

Using your example above:

var Schema = mongoose.Schema,
    ObjectId = Schema.ObjectId;

SubdomainSchema = new Schema
    name : String

CustphoneSchema = new Schema
    phone : String
    subdomain  : { type: ObjectId, ref: 'SubdomainSchema' }

The subdomain field will be is updated with an ‘_id’ such as:

var newSubdomain = new SubdomainSchema({name: 'Example Domain'})
newSubdomain.save()

var newCustphone = new CustphoneSchema({phone: '123-456-7890', subdomain: newSubdomain._id})
newCustphone.save()

To actually get data from the subdomain field you’re going to have to use the slightly more complex query syntax:

CustphoneSchema.findOne({}).populate('subdomain').exec(function(err, custPhone) { 
// Your callback code where you can access subdomain directly through custPhone.subdomain.name 
})

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