node.js - Mongoose upsert does not create default schema property

Question

Example document Schema:

var CompanySchema = Schema({
    created: { type: Date, default: Date.now },
    modified: { type: Date, default: Date.now },
    address: { type: String, required:true },
    name: { type: String, required:true }
});

I'm using a common request handler for edit and create of "Company" documents:

exports.upsert = function(req, res) {
    helper.sanitizeObject(req.body);
    var company = {
        name: req.body.name,
        address: req.body.address
    };
    var id = req.body.id || new mongoose.Types.ObjectId();
    var queryOptions = {
        upsert: true
    };
    Company.findByIdAndUpdate(id, company, queryOptions).exec(function(error, result) {
        if(!error) {
            helper.respondWithData(req, res, {
                data: result.toJSON()
            });
        } else {
            helper.respondWithError(req, res, helper.getORMError(error));
        }
    });
};

But using this method, when a new document is inserted, created, modified properties are not saved with default values of Date.now. Now I can call Company.create depending on the existence of an id but I'm wondering why upsert does not use default values if a property does not exist on a new document?

I'm using Mongoose version ~3.8.10,

Answer 1

What's going on is that none of Mongoose's validation, middleware, or default values are used when calling any of the "update" family of methods, like findByIdAndUpdate. They're only invoked by calls to save or create.

The reason for this is that the "update" calls are effectively pass-throughs to the native driver, with Mongoose only providing type-casting of the fields based on the schema definition.

Mongoose 4.0 Update

Mongoose now supports setting defaults when a new document is created during an update, findOneAndUpdate, or findByIdAndUpdate upsert. Set the setDefaultsOnInsert option to true to enable this. This uses the $setOnInsert operator to create the defaults on insert.

var queryOptions = {
    upsert: true,
    setDefaultsOnInsert: true
};
Company.findByIdAndUpdate(id, company, queryOptions).exec( ...