matching doesn't set _populated to true

[SDAdham]

Describe the bug

_populated is not set to true when using matching with populate and populateWhere which leads .toJSON to strip off the populated entities

Reproduction

https://github.com/SDAdham/reproduction/blob/master/src/example.test.ts

What driver are you using?

@mikro-orm/mysql

MikroORM version

6.2.5

Node.js version

20.9.0

Operating system

No response

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• The provided reproduction is a minimal reproducible example of the bug.

[SDAdham]

Discord Thread: https://discord.com/channels/1214904142443839538/1238875455436881971

[B4nan]

A workaround for your repro would be using em.populate, which will adjust the user entity populate hint internally and that is the main source when serializing now. The _populated flag is only meant for manual overrides (via the public populated() method, no need to access it directly).

await orm.em.populate(user, ['groups.permissions'], {
  where: {
    groups: {
      permissions: {
        write: true,
      },
    },
  },
  orderBy: {
    groups: {
      permissions: {
        id: 'ASC',
      },
    },
  },
});

Note that you need to call this on the root entity (user) which you will be serializing, it wouldn't help if called on user.groups separately.

[SDAdham]

Will it affect the loaded groups? I have a where condition on those as well?

[B4nan]

Why don't you check the query yourself? It should be equivalent (it's actually a better approach in general).

[SDAdham]

@B4nan, how can I limit populate from populating an entire collection? I want to just take 1 for example.

[SDAdham]

So, here is a conversion of your suggestion:

await this.repo.populate(
            user,
            ['pictures', 'profiles.links', 'profiles.themes', 'profiles.groups', 'settings'], // here, I want to get the last applied settings by the user
            {
              orderBy: {
                profiles: {
                  links: {
                    urlOrder: 'ASC'
                  }
                },
                pictures: {
                  sizes: 'ASC'
                }
              },
              where: {
                profiles: {
                  links: {
                    publish: true
                  },
                  themes: {
                    default: true
                  }
                }
              }
            }
          );

[SDAdham]

Hello @B4nan , have you had a chance to see my comment above? Is there any chance I limit the populate for settings? I used to be able to do this easy with matching.

[B4nan]

you can't do that with em.populate, that only loads complete collections.

i think i have a workaround for you, you could use setSerializationContext private method of EntityLoader, that is what makes it work with em.populate:

await users[0].groups.matching({ ... });

// @ts-ignore accessing private variables and methods
orm.em.entityLoader.setSerializationContext(users, [{ field: 'groups', children: [{ field: 'permissions' }] }], {});