Is it ok to use Mongo's “Object ID” as its unique identifier? If so, how can I convert it to a string and look it up by string?

Question

For example...

user/view/?id=324gijsdfi3h25o1

I can str() it...but...

How can I find it up by string?

Answer 1

ObjectId is a handy way of generating a unique _id, but you are free to do it yourself. For your example,

var o = {_id: Math.random().toString(36).substring(10)};
collection.insert(o, handleCollision);

works fine, though you have to handle collisions yourself. Then you can use direct string comparisons as needed.