UPDATE 1: 5 votes have been received, so I have submitted a feature request: https://github.com/LearnBoost/mongoose/issues/2637

Please cast your +1 votes there to let the core team know you want this feature.

UPDATE 2: See answer below...

ORIGINAL POST:

Lets say I do a lean query on a collection OR receive some data from a REST service and I get an array of objects (not mongoose documents).

These objects already exist in the database, but I need to convert some/all of those objects to mongoose documents for individual editing/saving.

I have read through the source and there is a lot going on once mongoose has data from the database (populating, casting, initializing, etc), but there doesn't seem to be a method for 'exposing' this to the outside world.

I am using the following, but it just seems hacky ($data is a plain object):

// What other properties am I not setting?  Is this enough?

var doc = new MyModel( $data );

doc.isNew = false;



// mimicking mongoose internals

// init is called internally after a document is loaded from the database

// This method is not documented, but seems like the most proper way to do this.

var doc = new MyModel( undefined );

doc.init( $data );

UPDATE: After more searching I don't think there is a way to do this yet, and the first method above is your best bet (mongoose v3.8.8). If anybody else is interested in this, I will make a feature request for something like this (leave a comment or upvote please):

var doc = MyModel.hydrate( $data );