How use dynamic routes to find people in my mongoose database with node.js - express

Question

app.get('/admin/reservas/:param', function(req, res) {
var param = req.param("param");
console.log(param);
mongoose.model('Something').findOne(
{
id: param
}, function(err, obj) {
res.send(obj);
console.log(obj);
}
);
});
I have this route, and this EJS:
<% for(var i = 0; i < data.length; i++) { %>
<td> <a href= <%="/admin/reservas/" + data[i].id + ""%>><%= data[i].id %></a></td>
<td> <a href= <%="/admin/reservas/" + data[i].name + ""%>><%= data[i].name %></a></td>
<% } %>
And is fine, when i click in the id, i find what the id in the db that i want, but I want to be able to find by the name too.
So i was trying to change the routes:
app.get('/names/:param', function(req, res) {
var param = req.param("param");
console.log(param);
mongoose.model('Something').findOne(
{
id: param,
name: param
}, function(err, obj) {
res.send(obj);
console.log(obj);
}
);
});
but is returning anything, both the id and the name

Answer 1

MongoDB query arguments are by default always a logical and condition. In order to use a logical or there is the $or operator:
app.get('/admin/reservas/:param', function(req, res) {
var param = req.param("param");
console.log(param);
mongoose.model('Something').findOne(
{
"$or": [
{ id: param },
{ name: param }
]
}, function(err, obj) {
res.send(obj);
console.log(obj);
}
);
});
The $or operator takes an array of query documents to consider the conditions of. It is a "short circuit" match where the first condition to evaluate as true makes the statement true.
At least that would be true if not of a specific problem here. See _id and it's id alias is a special value to both MongoDB and Mongoose. By default this will try to "cast" to an ObjectID type but it cannot if the string supplied is invalid, such as "fred" for example.
This would cause an exception as the query arguments are supplied. So the bottom line rule is your cannot "mix types" in an $or condition in this way with something that would not survive the conversion from String. You would have to do it "logically" in a different way by testing the value
for what it is:
app.get('/admin/reservas/:param', function(req, res) {
var param = req.param("param");
console.log(param);
var query = {};
try {
var id = mongoose.mongo.ObjectID(param);
query = { "id": id };
} catch {
query = { "name": param };
}
mongoose.model('Something').findOne(
query, function(err, obj) {
res.send(obj);
console.log(obj);
}
);
});
That means that the query is now built in a way that mongoose will parse it considering the schema "types" to apply then there is no error since the decision of which field to query on was made elsewhere.
Alternately of course you can "bypass" the mongoose method behavior and just use the raw driver:
app.get('/admin/reservas/:param', function(req, res) {
var param = req.param("param");
console.log(param);
var id ="";
try {
id = mongoose.mongo.ObjectID(param);
}
mongoose.model('Something').collection.findOne(
{
"$or": [
{ id: id },
{ name: param }
]
}, function(err, obj) {
res.send(obj);
console.log(obj);
}
);
});
But of course you need to do the type conversion yourself and not only for "testing" otherwise even a correct "String" value representing an ObjectID would not work.