mongoose $in filter with find method is returning empty array

Question

I am using this function

export const getVideoByTag = async (req, res, next) => {
  const tags = req.query.tags?.split(",");
  try {
    const videos = await Video.find({tags: {$in: tags}}).limit(20);
    res.status(200).json(videos);
  }catch (err) {
    next(err);
  }
};

The router path is router.get("/tags", getVideoByTag)

And I am using postman with the endpoint {{host}}/videos/tags?tags=js

And in my database videos are like this

{
"_id":{"$oid":"62f02bff4ec6b4df46b3aced"},
"userId":"62eeaaf26595deb49db004b0",
"title":"Second Video",
"description":"test description",
"imgUrl":"https://dsafawefas.vom",
"videoUrl":"https://heksldawra.com/assets/likes.mp4",
"views":{"$numberInt":"0"},
"tags":["['js', 'horse']"],
"likes":[],
"disLikes":[],
"createdAt":{"$date":{"$numberLong":"1659907071761"}},
"updatedAt":{"$date":{"$numberLong":"1659907071761"}},
"__v":{"$numberInt":"0"}
}

The problem

You can clearly see that there's a js tag inside the video schema inside my db, but still still it's returning empty array [] when I use get request inside the postman

Answer 1

Your query seems correct but I think there might be an issue with how you are populating your tags.

It doesn't look like its a true array. You are storing the text without actually converting it to an array.

For instance, here is a sample document I just stored and retrieved. Notice the difference in tags component:

{
    "_id" : ObjectId("62f10768c20220d872336a6c"),
    "tags" : [ 
        "js", 
        "horse"
    ]
}