Using Primary Keys with React Native

MongoDB Atlas App Services & Realm Realm
1

I am using react navigation and want to update an entry in a subscreen. The problem is that I can’t pass the actual “project” object because the key is BSON and can’t be serialized. So I thought I would search by primarykey but not sure what to search for. The boilerplate code defines primarykey in schema and apparently sets it to the _id. The question is what is the primaryKey really set to? I would like to be able to have it be some value that can be serialized or even better the HexString of the _id so I can determine the primaryKey from the _id. Thoughts?

class Project extends Realm.Object { 
  
    static generate(title, description, address, lat, lon) {  
      return {
        _id: new Realm.BSON.ObjectId(),
        title , 
        description,
        address,
        lat,
        lon,
        createdAt: new Date(),
      }
    }

  
    static schema = {
      name: 'Project',
      primaryKey: '_id',
      properties: {
        _id: 'objectId',
        title: 'string',
        description: 'string', 
        lat: 'float',
        lon: 'float',
        createdAt: 'date'
      },
    };
  }
2

I would love to hear an answer to this from a Mongo developer, as I have the method I found feels more like workaround:

  1. Convert the ObjectId to a hexString via the built in method object._id.toHexString().
  2. Pass the hexString as the navigation param.
  3. On the subscreen, recreate the ObjectId from the hexString with new BSON.ObjectId(hexStringParam).
  4. Call useObject to retrieve the data on the subscreen.
//Button on parent screen
<TouchableOpacity
	onPress={() => {
		navigation.navigate('ProjectScreen', { project_id_param: project._id.toHexString() });
	}}
>


//Subscreen data retrieval
	const project_id = return new BSON.ObjectId(project_id_param);
	const project = useObject('Project', project_id);
1 Like