getting nested objects in mongoose - json

Question

I'm trying to retrieve an array of objects in mongoose using code that looks like this.
mongoPlaces
.find({
'person.types': {$in: ["student"]}
})
.select('family')
.lean()
.limit(3)
.exec(function (err, families) {
console.log()
})
the results is something like this
[
0: family:{objects}
1: family:{objects}
2: family:{objects}
]
and I need something like this
[
0: {objects}
1: {objects}
2: {objects}
]
is there some way to retrieve the contents of an object instead of the object itself using mongoose without having to make a loop and correct the array or is there any other way to make this cleanly?

Answer 1

There's no way to do this with mongoose, but there are ways of making it cleanly:
mongoPlaces
.find({
'person.types': {$in: ["student"]}
})
.select('family')
.lean()
.limit(3)
.exec(function (err, docs) {
var families = docs.map(function pluckFamily(doc) {
return doc.family;
});
return families;
});
In this example, map feeds each retrieved document to the function pluckFamily, and forms another array with all the values that that function returned.
If you're going to do a lot of this, you may want to check out the underscore library. It includes a pluck function.