how necessary is it to use ObjectId?

[jimmywarting]

I'm seeing stuff like this being used all over a project i started to help out in:

const ObjectId = require('mongoose').Types.ObjectId
const someModel = require('../userModel.js')

function handle (req, res) {
  await someModel.find({ _id: ObjectId(req.body.id) })
}

it's quite bloated. it seems perfectly fine to do: await someModel.find({ _id: req.body.id }) where req.body.id is just a string...

so my question is how often do you need to use ObjectId and when is it okey to just use a string?
i would assume only when you are creating your schema. that is when you should use it. other times it's okey to just use plain strings?

[vkarpov15]

As long as _id is an ObjectId in userModel's schema, you shouldn't have to do ObjectId(). The below should be fine:

await someModel.find({ _id: req.body.id });

By default, schemas have an _id of type ObjectId. So if there's no _id in userModel's schema, the above code should still work.

Mongoose casts query filters to match your schema, so it can do things like convert strings to numbers or strings to ObjectIds: https://mongoosejs.com/docs/tutorials/query_casting.html