In the example, results are not as expected.

[basicallydan]

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Hey there,

I am a big fan of this whole thing. It seems like a good idea and I can tell I'm almost getting what I expect but it isn't quite working. I used the example, but I removed some properties from the model (so now it's just username and best_friend) and then populated a database with three guys. The first one has no best friend, but the second has the first as a best friend, and the third has the second as a best friend.

I changed how the result is handled a little bit to make it nicer to read, like so:

var m = require('./models.js').createMongooseObject();
m.connect('mongodb://localhost/spandex-test', function () {
    console.log('connected to database');
    m.User.find()
    .populate('best_friend')
    .populate('best_friend.best_friend').exec(function (err, result) {
        result.forEach(function (user) {
            console.log(JSON.stringify(user, null, 4));
            if (user.best_friend) {
                console.log(user.username + '\'s BFF: ', result.best_friend.username); 
                if (user.best_friend.best_friend) {
                    console.log('-> ' + user.username + '\'s BFF\'s BFF: ', result.best_friend.best_friend.username); 
                }
            }
        });
    });
});

And this is what comes out:

{
    "mongooseLink": {
        "_id": "511395420d8e590f6fb5a4e4",
        "username": "Steve"
    },
    "populatedObjects": {}
}
{
    "mongooseLink": {
        "_id": "511395520d8e590f6fb5a4e5",
        "username": "James Jameson"
    },
    "populatedObjects": {}
}
{
    "mongooseLink": {
        "_id": "511395710d8e590f6fb5a4e6",
        "username": "Bobby Bobson"
    },
    "populatedObjects": {}
}

Do you know why this might be happening? The model doesn't appear to actually be the model I expect, more like some raw data.

models.js is exactly the same apart from the extra properties. Is it possible that the example is out of date?

Thanks - and great work, I know a lot of people are using subpopulate with success.

[JoshuaGross]

Hi Dan, could you provide me with an example that creates the three dudes? Another thing I'm interested in is what happens if you only grab one at a time; and if the first one having no best_friend is what clobbers the whole thing. That shouldn't be the case but it might! I would write the test myself but I'm about to head to bed. What would be awesome, actually, would be for you to submit failing unit tests so I can just fix those.

There might be a few dragons lurking here still. I'm waiting with great expectation for mongoose proper to make this obsolete :)

[basicallydan]

I'm actually having issues running expect.js tests on Windows, I'm afraid, so no unit tests :(

As for the data, though, I'm simply setting it up through the mongo CLI.

db.users.insert({ "username" : "Bobby Bobson", "best_friend" : ObjectId("Whatever the best friend's ID is"})

And so on.

[JoshuaGross]

You should definitely get expect.js running, that would be very helpful in tracking down issues like this.

I was able to write some tests and verify that subpopulation of the same type (recursive population, I suppose; populate('field1').populate('field1.field1')) doesn't work as expected, but populate('field1').populate('field1.field2') works as expected. Not sure when I'll be able to fix this as it's not really one of my use-cases.