Mongoose String to ObjectID

You want to use the default export:

import mongoose from 'mongoose';

After that, mongoose.Types.ObjectId will work:

import mongoose from 'mongoose';
console.log( mongoose.Types.ObjectId('578df3efb618f5141202a196') );

EDIT: full example (tested with [email protected]):

import mongoose from 'mongoose';

mongoose.connect('mongodb://localhost/test');

const Schema = mongoose.Schema;

var comments = new Schema({
    user_id:  { type: Schema.Types.ObjectId, ref: 'users',required: [true,'No user id found']},
    post: { type: Schema.Types.ObjectId, ref: 'posts',required: [true,'No post id found']}
});

const commentsModel = mongoose.model("comments", comments);

let comment = new commentsModel;
let str = '578df3efb618f5141202a196';
comment.user_id = str;
comment.post = str;
comment.save().then(() => console.log('saved'))
              .catch(e => console.log('Error', e));

Database shows this:

mb:test$ db.comments.find().pretty()
{
    "_id" : ObjectId("578e5cbd5b080fbfb7bed3d0"),
    "post" : ObjectId("578df3efb618f5141202a196"),
    "user_id" : ObjectId("578df3efb618f5141202a196"),
    "__v" : 0
}

use this

 var mongoose = require('mongoose');
 var str = '578df3efb618f5141202a196';
 var mongoObjectId = mongoose.Types.ObjectId(str);