Trying to get my initial object to have an empty array the represents an embedded has many documents that currently has no documents embedded.
I can get the relationship in the json string when it has a doc embedded or after I delete all embedded docs. But before any docs are embedded I do not get the attribute character_classes in the json string.
You can see my models below and below that IRB outputs to show what I get when I use to_json and as_document. The first set I don't get the character_classes both after the add and the delete I do...
The question: how do I get the initial set up to pass character_classes as an empty array?
===========Models==========================
class Character
include Mongoid::Document
include Mongoid::Timestamps
embeds_many :character_classes
end
class CharacterClasses
include Mongoid::Document
include Mongoid::Timestamps
embeds_in :character_classes
field :title
field :character_level
end
==========IRB==============================
> char = Character.first
=> #<Character _id: 550a1bd94e696383d1020000, created_at: 2015-03-19 00:44:09 UTC, updated_at: 2015-03-19 00:44:09 UTC>
> char.character_classes
=> []
> char.as_document
=> {"_id"=>BSON::ObjectId('550a1bd94e696383d1020000'), "updated_at"=>2015-03-19 00:44:09 UTC, "created_at"=>2015-03-19 00:44:09 UTC}
> char.to_json
=> "{\"_id\":{\"$oid\":\"550a1bd94e696383d1020000\"},\"created_at\":\"2015-03-19T00:44:09.232Z\",\"updated_at\":\"2015-03-19T00:56:01.257Z\"}"
> char.character_classes.create(title: "data")
=> [#<CharacterClass _id: 550a1d914e69638730000000, title: "data", character_level: 1>]
> char.as_document
=> {"_id"=>BSON::ObjectId('550a1bd94e696383d1020000'), "updated_at"=>2015-03-19 00:44:09 UTC, "created_at"=>2015-03-19 00:44:09 UTC, "character_classes"=>[{"_id"=>BSON::ObjectId('550a1d914e69638730000000'), "title"=>"data", "character_level"=>1}]}
> char.to_json
=>"{\"_id\":{\"$oid\":\"550a1bd94e696383d1020000\"},\"character_classes\":[{\"_id\":{\"$oid\":\"550a20a74e69638730010000\"},\"character_level\":1,\"title\":\"data\"}],\"created_at\":\"2015-03-19T00:44:09.232Z\",\"updated_at\":\"2015-03-19T00:56:01.257Z\"}"
> char.character_classes.destroy_all
=> 1
> char.character_classes
=> []
> char.as_document
=> {"_id"=>BSON::ObjectId('550a1bd94e696383d1020000'), "updated_at"=>2015-03-19 00:44:09 UTC, "created_at"=>2015-03-19 00:44:09 UTC, "character_classes"=>[]}
> char.to_json
=> "{\"_id\":{\"$oid\":\"550a1bd94e696383d1020000\"},\"character_classes\":[],\"created_at\":\"2015-03-19T00:44:09.232Z\",\"updated_at\":\"2015-03-19T00:56:01.257Z\"}"
I have realize since having this issue that is has nothing to do with to_json or as_document. The reason it is not getting pulled is because only attributes with values are placed in the database. So when creating a new object, since the embedded docs don't exist yet they are not placed in the database. So when I ask for the record it is just giving attributes that had some sort of value.
For normal attributes I can solve this by making a blank default. But there is no default option on embeds many.
Does anyone know how to initialize the relationship so that is place an empty array into the database?
embeds_in :character_classes should the CharacterClasses class should be embeds_in :character. See https://docs.mongodb.org/ecosystem/tutorial/mongoid-relations/#embeds-many