Mongoose, Select a specific field with find

There is a shorter way of doing this now:

exports.someValue = function(req, res, next) {
    //query with mongoose
    dbSchemas.SomeValue.find({}, 'name', function(err, someValue){
      if(err) return next(err);
      res.send(someValue);
    });
    //this eliminates the .select() and .exec() methods
};

In case you want most of the Schema fields and want to omit only a few, you can prefix the field name with a - (minus sign). For ex "-name" in the second argument will not include name field in the doc whereas the example given here will have only the name field in the returned docs.

There's a better way to handle it using Native MongoDB code in Mongoose.

exports.getUsers = function(req, res, next) {

    var usersProjection = { 
        __v: false,
        _id: false
    };

    User.find({}, usersProjection, function (err, users) {
        if (err) return next(err);
        res.json(users);
    });    
}

http://docs.mongodb.org/manual/reference/method/db.collection.find/

Note:

var usersProjection

The list of objects listed here will not be returned / printed.

The _id field is always present unless you explicitly exclude it. Do so using the - syntax:

exports.someValue = function(req, res, next) {
    //query with mongoose
    var query = dbSchemas.SomeValue.find({}).select('name -_id');

    query.exec(function (err, someValue) {
        if (err) return next(err);
        res.send(someValue);
    });
};

Or explicitly via an object:

exports.someValue = function(req, res, next) {
    //query with mongoose
    var query = dbSchemas.SomeValue.find({}).select({ "name": 1, "_id": 0});

    query.exec(function (err, someValue) {
        if (err) return next(err);
        res.send(someValue);
    });
};