Allow populating paths with spaces

Author: vkarpov15Created Oct 16, 2023Updated Sep 15, 2026

Labelsdiscussionbackwards-breaking

Prerequisites

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Issue

The following test fails, there's no way to populate the 'original author' path that I can see:

javascript

    it('allows populating path with space in name (gh-13951)', async function() {
      const BlogPost = db.model('BlogPost', new Schema({
        title: String,
        'original author': { type: ObjectId, ref: 'User' },
        author: { type: ObjectId, ref: 'User' }
      }));
      const User = db.model('User', new Schema({ name: String }));

      const fans = await User.create([{ name: 'Fan 1' }]);
      const posts = [
        { title: 'Test 1', author: fans[0]._id, 'original author': fans[0]._id }
      ];
      await BlogPost.create(posts);
      const blogPost = await BlogPost.
        findOne({ title: 'Test 1' }).
        populate({ path: 'original author' });

      assert.equal(blogPost['original author'].name, 'Fan 1');
      assert.equal(blogPost.title, 'Test 1');
    });

Worth finding a way to support this behavior without breaking existing logic that relies on whitespace to separate multiple paths.

Source: Automattic/mongoose

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