Have field "id" distinct from "_id"; mongodb-engine seems to map the former to the latter

[prseshad]

Hi

I am new to mongodb-engine and am enjoying it. Ran into an issue, and apologies if this is not the right forum or if it's already been answered.

I have documents in one of my tables that have both an _id field, for the ObjectId, and an id field, which is not a pk, like this:

"_id": {
"$oid": "5505e78068bd7bdc667c1926"
},
"id": 1114157,
"duplicates": [],
"application_ids": [
1125668
],

I am trying to access the "id" field through a field called "candidate_id" (since I can't name it id, as that field name is reserved for pk's), like this:

class DedupedCandidate(models.Model):
class Meta:
db_table = 'deduped_candidates'

candidate_id = models.IntegerField(db_column='id')
application_ids = IntListOverrideField()
duplicates = IntListOverrideField()

But when I look at an object in the admin, candidate_id is populated with _id["$oid"], when it should be populated with the "id" field's value.

So I am assuming somewhere the db_column "id" is being mapped to "_id"; is that correct? And is there a way to prevent that from happening?