Trouble displaying multi-valued attribute for nested data

Questions and Answers
1
System Information
  • Strapi v3.6.8:
  • Operating system; Windows:
  • Database: MySQL:
  • Node Version: v14.18.0:

I have a collection called dish-category which contains many dishes, and a dish collection that contains many dish-options (another collection).

the list of dishes from each dish-category is available in the API but the nested collection of dish options from each dish is not available on strapi.

the following are the settings for my models:

dish-category.settings.json:

{
  "kind": "collectionType",
  "collectionName": "dish_categories",
  "info": {
    "name": "DishCategory",
    "description": ""
  },
  "options": {
    "increments": true,
    "timestamps": true,
    "draftAndPublish": true
  },
  "pluginOptions": {},
  "attributes": {
    "Name": {
      "type": "string"
    },
    "Description": {
      "type": "text"
    },
    "dishes": {
      "collection": "dish",
      "via": "dish_category"
    }
  }
}

dish.settings.json:

{
  "kind": "collectionType",
  "collectionName": "dishes",
  "info": {
    "name": "Dish",
    "description": ""
  },
  "options": {
    "increments": true,
    "timestamps": true,
    "draftAndPublish": true
  },
  "pluginOptions": {},
  "attributes": {
    "Name": {
      "type": "string"
    },
    "Description": {
      "type": "text"
    },
    "Total": {
      "type": "decimal",
      "min": 0,
      "required": false,
      "default": 0
    },
    "dish_categories": {
      "collection": "dish-category"
    },
    "dish_options": {
      "collection": "dish-option",
      "via": "dish"
    },
    "dish_category": {
      "via": "dishes",
      "model": "dish-category"
    }
  }
}

dish-option.settings.json:

{
  "kind": "collectionType",
  "collectionName": "dish_options",
  "info": {
    "name": "DishOption",
    "description": ""
  },
  "options": {
    "increments": true,
    "timestamps": true,
    "draftAndPublish": true
  },
  "pluginOptions": {},
  "attributes": {
    "Name": {
      "type": "string"
    },
    "Price": {
      "type": "decimal",
      "min": 0,
      "default": 0
    },
    "dish": {
      "via": "dish_options",
      "model": "dish"
    }
  }
}

on the dish-category/controllers/dish-category.js file I tried populating the attribute:

'use strict';

/**
 * Read the documentation (https://strapi.io/documentation/developer-docs/latest/development/backend-customization.html#core-controllers)
 * to customize this controller
 */

module.exports = {

    async find(params, populate){
        return strapi.query('dish-category').find(params, ["dishes","dish.dish_options"]);
    }
};

I am having trouble displaying nested relations with multiple values, I have tried looking up solutions online, I came across this thread Simple nested array issue - #4 by DMehaffy but it seems like the link to the solution is no longer available.