I'm trying to find a specific item like this :
Product.find({ category: "bracelet" });
But in one case I need to put either a value like bracelet in category or basically say category of any like this :
let cat;
if (req.body.cat) {
cat = req.body.cat;
} else {
cat = "";
}
let products;
try {
products = await Product.find({ category: cat });
} catch (e) {
return next(e);
}
So I put an empty string to find all items no matter what category field value they have but it doesn't work and returns an empty array .
How can I achieve this kind of behavior which says if there is a cat field on the request body search for that otherwise search for all items no matter of what category field value they have ?
let cat;
if (req.body.cat) {
cat = req.body.cat;
} else {
cat = {$regex:".*."};
}
let products;
try {
products = await Product.find({ category: cat });
} catch (e) {
return next(e);
}
I solved the issue with a trick by saying find all that have category field or category field exist :
let cat;
if (req.body.cat) {
cat = req.body.cat;
} else {
cat = { $exists: true };
}
This way It will either search for the category from the request body if included and if not it will get all the items with category field .