I want to add to the return data from a mongoose query:
User.findById(userId, function(err, data) {
if (!err) {
data.newvar = 'Hello, world';
}
});
However, when I console log the output, the newvar does not exist. I've also tried this using Underscore's extend:
_.extend(data, {'newvar': 'Hello, world'});
With no luck either. Since I have nested documents, using a shallow copy won't work. Is there any way to append data here?
One way to handle this is to convert your mongoose model instance into a plain object that you have full control over by calling toObject()
on it:
User.findById(userId, function(err, data) {
if (!err) {
data = data.toObject();
data.newvar = 'Hello, world';
}
});
If you want a more structured solution, you can add virtual attributes to your schema as described here.
As it turns out, Mongoose documents are their own special class and not standard Javascript objects. In order to get a javascript option that can be extended, you must use the toObject() method.
Now you can use lean() method to return a plain js object:
User.findById(userId)
.lean()
.exec( function(err, data) {
if (!err) {
data.newvar = 'Hello, world';
}
});
Why can't you modify the data returned by a Mongoose Query (ex: findById)