How to use $or operator in URL query string for node.js express mongoose backend

Question

Is there a (proper) way to use the $oroperator in a URL query string to realize a client customizable query which does not only consist of and combined fields against my node.js powered RESTful API?

Let's say I have objects like

[{
  A: 1,
  B: 2,
  C: 42
}, {
  A: 3,
  B: 1,
  C: 42
}]

How do I query the MongoDB using mongoose to get both of them if searched in multiple fields? Something like $and: [{C:42}, $or: [{A:1}, {B:1}]] as URL parameters?

I tried GET /api/orders?$or=[{A:1},{B:1}]], but that results in a query like orders.find({ '$or': '[{A:1},{B:1}]]' }}), where the array is a string. The MongoDB driver then complains about $or needs an array.

All libraries like mongo-querystring have some complex operators for $gtand so on, but not for a simple OR of parameters. What am I missing here?

My goal is to build a convience search field, where the user can enter a simple string which then in turn is searched in multiple fields, returning all documents where at least one field (or a substring of that field) matches. So the frontend should decide in which fields and how the server should search, leading to a dynamic set of AND/OR combined field/value pairs.

Thanks in advance,

Ly

mkhanoyan · Accepted Answer · 2017-09-21 21:36:19Z

2

One option is to use the qs library which is a querystring parser with nested object support.

const qs = require('qs');

const query = {$or:[{A:1},{B:1}]};

let stringQuery = qs.stringify(query);

console.log(stringQuery); // => %24or%5B0%5D%5BA%5D=1&%24or%5B1%5D%5BB%5D=1
console.log(qs.parse(stringQuery)); // => { '$or': [ { A: '1' }, { B: '1' } ] }

answered Sep 21, 2017 at 21:36

mkhanoyan

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3 Comments

Nico Ecker Over a year ago

Thanks for your reply, that is one decent way to do it. I ended doing the parsing myself, but that's basically the solution.

Seeven Over a year ago

Thanks. As a side note, the unencoded query string looks like this: $or[0][A]=1&$or[1][B]=1

James Morris Over a year ago

@Seeven You said the "unencoded query string looks like this: $or[0][A]=1&$or[1][B]=1" how do you make it match the example above parse result?

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