Full-Stack React Projects - Second Edition

Updating the user model

To store the list of following and followers in the database, we will need to update the user model with two arrays of user references, as shown in the following code.

mern-social/server/models/user.model.js:

following: [{type: mongoose.Schema.ObjectId, ref: 'User'}],followers: [{type: mongoose.Schema.ObjectId, ref: 'User'}]

These references will point to the users in the collection being followed by or following the given user. Next, we will update the user controllers to ensure the details of the users that are referenced in these lists are returned in a response to client-side requests.