Is it possible to have an array of alternative subdocument schemas in mongoose

Question

Is it possible to have an array of alternative subdocument schemas in mongoose?

For instance, take this made up scenario: if i have a main schema for a person and i have a field called vehicles of type array, i want to be able to define sub document schemas, but for each vehicle type (car, motorbike, bike, bus etc etc ) :

var car = new mongoose.Schema({
    make: { type: String, required: true, default: 'Ford', trim: true },
    model: { type: String, trim: true },
    wheels: Number,
});
var motorbike = new mongoose.Schema({
    make: { type: String, required: true, default: 'Honda', trim: true },
    model: { type: String, trim: true },
    seats: Number,
});
var bike = new mongoose.Schema({
    make: { type: String, required: true, default: 'MuddyFox', trim: true },
    model: { type: String, trim: true },
    lights: Number,
});
var bus = new mongoose.Schema({
    make: { type: String, required: true, default: 'MAN', trim: true },
    model: { type: String, trim: true },
    dents: Number,
});

/* person */
var person = new mongoose.Schema({
    name: { type: String, required: true, default: 'Joe Bloggs', trim: true },
    timeCreated: { type: Date, required: true, default: Date.now },
    vehicles: [car, motorbike, bike, bus] /* this is what i want to do */
});

db.model('person', person);

Note the person schema.

So that person can have any of those vehicles, but the data for each vehicle is still validated against it's own schema.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

There is a mongoose plugin called mongoose-schema-extend, that will allow you to enable Schema Inheritance for Mongoose, and basically I think, you are looking for this functionality.

Please check the github project:

• https://github.com/briankircho/mongoose-schema-extend

You can create a Vehicle schema, add it as an array to the Person schema, and extend the Vehicle for your different type of vehicles.