Skip Validation of Sub-Documents

I have a situation where I needed to modify some attributes of the schemas making them mandatory, my idea was that the validations were made ​​only when changes have direct objects that, because I have separate pages for maintaining address and phone for example.

Initially my modeling was thus:

var AddressSchema = new Schema({ 
    name: {type: String, required: true},
    street1: {type: String},
    street2: {type: String},
});

var PhoneSchema = new Schema({ 
    number: {type: Number, required: true}
});

var CustomerSchema = new Schema({
    name: {type: String, required: true},
    addresses: [AddressSchema],
    phones: [PhoneSchema]
});

var customer = new Customer();
customer.name = 'Tiago';
customer.addresses.push({name: 'address 1'}); 
customer.phones.push({number: 123456});

customer.save(function(err){
    if(err) throw err;
});

Then I had to modify some attributes required putting in Address but have saved many addresses that do not have those data filled and going forward that would be required.

var AddressSchema = new Schema({ 
    name: {type: String, required: true},
    street1: {type: String, required: true},
    street2: {type: String, required: true}
});

Now I would like to remove or change the phone this client and I can not because I have the address validation, have some way to do this using the save method?

Customer.find({name: "Tiago"}, function(err, customer){
    if(err) throw err;

    customer[0].phones.remove();
    customer[0].save(function(err){
        if(err) throw err; //Validation Valid
    });
});

Customer.find({name: "Tiago"}, function(err, customer){
    if(err) throw err;

    customer[0].name = 'Tiago Changed';
    customer[0].phones[0].number = 654321;
    customer[0].phones.push({number: 98765432});

    customer[0].save(function(err){
        if(err) throw err; //Validation Valid
    });
});

[DesignByOnyx]

This is a necessary feature. Sub documents should skip validation if they have no modified paths. This would drastically improve performance when saving large documents and would prevent unnecessary errors being thrown on a document which was not modified.

[DesignByOnyx]

So I absolutely needed this working on my project. I have lots of nested schemas, and future requirements should not affect existing sub documents. If I need to perform a mass update due to new fields or new business logic, I will build that into my update/deployment process. Otherwise, legacy content can get updated whenever it gets updated and should never be treated as invalid until then. Here’s my hack… very very hack - it short circuits mongoose’s internal logic during validation. This should work for any schema (mongo v.2.6.1) and can be easily be wrapped in a plugin:

NOTE: If you are using any plugins to do things like “modified_on” fields, make sure they check that this.modifiedPaths().length === 0 before setting any values.

    var tmpValues;
    schema.pre('validate', function(next) {
        tmpValues = { states:{} };
        if( this.modifiedPaths().length === 0 ) {
            tmpValues.states.require = this.$__.activePaths.states.require;
            tmpValues.states.init = this.$__.activePaths.states.init;
            tmpValues.states.modify = this.$__.activePaths.states.modify;
            tmpValues.states.default = this.$__.activePaths.states.default;

            this.$__.activePaths.states.require = {};
            this.$__.activePaths.states.init = {};
            this.$__.activePaths.states.modify = {};
            this.$__.activePaths.states.default = {};
        }
        next();
    });

    schema.post('validate', function(doc) {
        for( var state in tmpValues.states ) {
            this.$__.activePaths.states[ state ] = tmpValues.states[ state ];
        }
    });