In querying a collection in a Mongo database with Mongoose, how can I find where a value is LIKE a query term?

Question

In querying a collection in a Mongo database with Mongoose, how can I find where a value is LIKE a query term?

I've search hard for an answer to this but haven't found anything that works. I have a NodeJS app, with the Mongoose ORM. I'm trying to query my Mongo database where a result is LIKE the query.

I have tried using a new RegExp to find the results, but it hasn't worked for me. The only time I get a result is when the query is exactly the same as the collection property's value.

Here's what I'm using right now:

    var query = "Some Query String.";    
    var q = new RegExp('^/.*'+ query +'.*/i$');

    Quote.find({author: q}, function(err, doc){
        cb(doc);
    });

If the value of an author property contains something LIKE the query (for instance: 'some. query String'), I need to return the results. Perhaps stripping case, and excluding special characters is all I can do? What is the best way to do this? My RegEx in this example is obviously not working. Thanks!

regex
string
node.js
mongodb
mongoose

Answer 1

You likely want to create your RegExp as follows instead as you don't include the / chars when using new RegExp:

var q = new RegExp(query, 'i');

I don't know of a way to ignore periods in the author properties of your docs with a RegExp though. You may want to look at $text queries for more flexible searching like that.