ObjectID string interface

[hacksparrow]

Follow up of loopbackio/loopback-next#3456.

All model properties defined as {type: String, mongodb: {dataType: 'objectID'} should be stored as ObjectID in the database but provide a string interface in the connector APIs. Meaning, string version of the ObjectID will be used in queries and results, ObjectID will not be directly exposed to users.

Any property not defined as {type: String, mongodb: {dataType: 'objectID'} will no be stored as ObjectID, even if the string looks like an ObjectID.

Acceptance criteria

• Add implementation for String to ObjectID conversion in queries
• Add implementation for ObjectID to String conversion in results
• Refactor existing implementation wherever applicable
• Remove redundant code
• Update docs
• Add tests
• Add a "Long Term Support" section to README (see strongloop/loopback for inspiration) and also explain which connector versions are compatible with which LoopBack versions.

[bajtos]

Important: we already have a similar implementation in place for Decimal128 type. Going forward, we should have a single unified solution for dealing with string-based data-types (ObjectID, Decimal128), to ensure consistent handling of edge cases like nested properties in anonymous models, nested array items, etc.

[hacksparrow]

Yes, in the proposed approach ObjectID and Decimal128 coercion happen in the same block. It can be further optimized.

[mikeevstropov]

@hacksparrow When you said
Any property not defined as {type: String, mongodb: {dataType: 'objectID'} will no be stored as ObjectID, even if the string looks like an ObjectID.
Will the CLI automatically set dataType for relation? It looks like i need to handle it manually each time when i generate the relation via lb4 relation. 😯

[stale]

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[stale]

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[paviln]

Hello,

When I use find on a repo, which model has a belongsTo:

// Foreign key
@belongsTo(
() => User,
{}, //relation metadata goes in here
{
// property definition goes in here
type: 'string',
required: true,
mongodb: {dataType: 'ObjectId'},
},
)
userId: string;

The result userId type is a object and not a string. This is annoying, since I want to use where neq..

The userId is stroed as ObjectId, if i change it to a string, I get a string value. But it should provide it as a string, even if it is a objectId?