Mongoose populating batch of arrays

Question

Mongoose populating batch of arrays

I have a schema with references for population inside a sub-document.

var schema = new mongoose.Schema({
    references: {
        images: [{ref: 'Page', type: mongoose.Schema.Types.ObjectId}],
        files: [{ref: 'Page', type: mongoose.Schema.Types.ObjectId}]
    }
});

And then create a model for it, matching the name of the references (pages => pages).

var Page = mongoose.model('Page', schema);

I want to retrieve a page by its identifier and retrieve all references.

Page.findById(id)
    .populate('references.images') // Err.. two populations..
    .populate('references.files') // Err.. two populations..
    .exec(function(err, page) {
    // ... snip ...
});

Now I am doing multiple populations. How can I ensure that a single population loads the batch of arrays?

javascript
node.js
mongodb
mongoose

Answer 1

Since 3.6 pre-release it is possible to do:

Page.findById(id)
    .populate('references.images references.files')
    .exec(function(err, page) {
    // ... snip ...
});