Meteor Collection Hooks 
Extends Mongo.Collection with before/after hooks for insert, update, remove, find, and findOne.
Works across client, server or a mix. Also works when a client initiates a collection method and the server runs the hook, all while respecting the collection validators (allow/deny).
Please refer to History.md for a summary of recent changes.
Getting Started
Installation:
meteor add matb33:collection-hooks
.before.insert(userId, doc)
Fired before the doc is inserted.
Allows you to modify doc as needed, or run additional functionality
this.transform()obtains transformed version of document, if a transform was
defined.
1import { Mongo } from 'meteor/mongo'; 2const test = new Mongo.Collection("test"); 3 4test.before.insert(function (userId, doc) { 5 doc.createdAt = Date.now(); 6});
.before.update(userId, doc, fieldNames, modifier, options)
Fired before the doc is updated.
Allows you to to change the modifier as needed, or run additional
functionality.
this.transform()obtains transformed version of document, if a transform was
defined.
1test.before.update(function (userId, doc, fieldNames, modifier, options) { 2 modifier.$set = modifier.$set || {}; 3 modifier.$set.modifiedAt = Date.now(); 4});
Important: Note that we are changing modifier, and not doc.
Changing doc won't have any effect as the document is a copy and is not what
ultimately gets sent down to the underlying update method.
.before.remove(userId, doc)
Fired just before the doc is removed.
Allows you to to affect your system while the document is still in existence -- useful for maintaining system integrity, such as cascading deletes.
this.transform()obtains transformed version of document, if a transform was
defined.
1test.before.remove(function (userId, doc) { 2 // ... 3});
.before.upsert(userId, selector, modifier, options)
Fired before the doc is upserted.
Allows you to to change the modifier as needed, or run additional
functionality.
1test.before.upsert(function (userId, selector, modifier, options) { 2 modifier.$set = modifier.$set || {}; 3 modifier.$set.modifiedAt = Date.now(); 4});
Note that calling upsert will always fire .before.upsert hooks, but will
call either .after.insert or .after.update hooks depending on the outcome of
the upsert operation. There is no such thing as a .after.upsert hook at this
time.
.after.insert(userId, doc)
Fired after the doc was inserted.
Allows you to run post-insert tasks, such as sending notifications of new document insertions.
this.transform()obtains transformed version of document, if a transform was
defined;
this._idholds the newly inserted_idif available.
1test.after.insert(function (userId, doc) { 2 // ... 3});
.after.update(userId, doc, fieldNames, modifier, options)
Fired after the doc was updated.
Allows you to to run post-update tasks, potentially comparing the previous and new documents to take further action.
this.previouscontains the document before it was updated.- The optional
fetchPreviousoption, when set to false, will not fetch documents before running the hooks.this.previouswill then not be available. The default behavior is to fetch the documents.
- The optional
this.transform()obtains transformed version of document, if a transform was defined. Note that this function accepts an optional parameter to specify the document to transform — useful to transform previous:this.transform(this.previous).
1test.after.update(function (userId, doc, fieldNames, modifier, options) { 2 // ... 3}, {fetchPrevious: true/false});
Important: If you have multiple hooks defined, and at least one of them does
not specify fetchPrevious: false, then the documents will be fetched
and provided as this.previous to all hook callbacks. All after-update hooks
for the same collection must have fetchPrevious: false set in order to
effectively disable the pre-fetching of documents.
It is instead recommended to use the collection-wide options (e.g.
MyCollection.hookOptions.after.update = {fetchPrevious: false};).
.after.remove(userId, doc)
Fired after the doc was removed.
doc contains a copy of the document before it was removed.
Allows you to to run post-removal tasks that don't necessarily depend on the document being found in the database (external service clean-up for instance).
this.transform()obtains transformed version of document, if a transform was
defined.
1test.after.remove(function (userId, doc) { 2 // ... 3});
.before.find(userId, selector, options)
Fired before a find query.
Allows you to to adjust selector/options on-the-fly.
1test.before.find(function (userId, selector, options) { 2 // ... 3});
.after.find(userId, selector, options, cursor)
Fired after a find query.
Allows you to to act on a given find query. The cursor resulting from the query is provided as the last argument for convenience.
1test.after.find(function (userId, selector, options, cursor) { 2 // ... 3});
.before.findOne(userId, selector, options)
Fired before a findOne query.
Allows you to to adjust selector/options on-the-fly.
1test.before.findOne(function (userId, selector, options) { 2 // ... 3});
.after.findOne(userId, selector, options, doc)
Fired after a findOne query.
Allows you to to act on a given findOne query. The document resulting from the query is provided as the last argument for convenience.
1test.after.findOne(function (userId, selector, options, doc) { 2 // ... 3});
Direct access (circumventing hooks)
All compatible methods have a direct version that circumvent any defined hooks. For example:
1collection.direct.insert({_id: "test", test: 1}); 2collection.direct.update({_id: "test"}, {$set: {test: 1}}); 3collection.direct.find({test: 1}); 4collection.direct.findOne({test: 1}); 5collection.direct.remove({_id: "test"});
Default options
As of version 0.7.0, options can be passed to hook definitions. Default options can be specified globally and on a per-collection basis for all or some hooks, with more specific ones having higher specificity.
Examples (in order of least specific to most specific):
1import { CollectionHooks } from 'meteor/matb33:collection-hooks'; 2 3CollectionHooks.defaults.all.all = {exampleOption: 1}; 4 5CollectionHooks.defaults.before.all = {exampleOption: 2}; 6CollectionHooks.defaults.after.all = {exampleOption: 3}; 7 8CollectionHooks.defaults.all.update = {exampleOption: 4}; 9CollectionHooks.defaults.all.remove = {exampleOption: 5}; 10 11CollectionHooks.defaults.before.insert = {exampleOption: 6}; 12CollectionHooks.defaults.after.remove = {exampleOption: 7};
Similarly, collection-wide options can be defined (these have a higher specificity than the global defaults from above):
1import { Mongo } from 'meteor/mongo'; 2const testCollection = new Mongo.Collection("test"); 3 4testCollection.hookOptions.all.all = {exampleOption: 1}; 5 6testCollection.hookOptions.before.all = {exampleOption: 2}; 7testCollection.hookOptions.after.all = {exampleOption: 3}; 8 9testCollection.hookOptions.all.update = {exampleOption: 4}; 10testCollection.hookOptions.all.remove = {exampleOption: 5}; 11 12testCollection.hookOptions.before.insert = {exampleOption: 6}; 13testCollection.hookOptions.after.remove = {exampleOption: 7};
Currently (as of 0.7.0), only fetchPrevious is implemented as an option, and
is only relevant to after-update hooks.
Additional notes
- Returning
falsein anybeforehook will prevent the underlying method (and
subsequent after hooks) from executing. Note that all before hooks will
still continue to run even if the first hook returns false.
- ~~If you wish to make
userIdavailable to afindquery in apublish
function, try the technique detailed in this comment~~ userId is available to find and findOne queries that were invoked within a publish function.
- All hook callbacks have
this._superavailable to them (the underlying
method) as well as this.context, the equivalent of this to the underlying
method. Additionally, this.args contain the original arguments passed to the
method and can be modified by reference (for example, modifying a selector in a
before hook so that the underlying method uses this new selector).
- It is quite normal for
userIdto sometimes be unavailable to hook callbacks
in some circumstances. For example, if an update is fired from the server
with no user context, the server certainly won't be able to provide any
particular userId.
-
You can define a
defaultUserIdin case you want to pass an userId to the hooks but there is no context. For instance if you are executing and API endpoint where theuserIdis derived from a token. Just assign the userId toCollectionHooks.defaultUserId. It will be overriden by the userId of the context if it exists. -
If, like me, you transform
Meteor.usersthrough a round-about way involving
find and findOne, then you won't be able to use this.transform(). Instead,
grab the transformed user with findOne.
-
When adding a hook, a handler object is returned with these methods:
remove(): will remove that particular hook;replace(callback, options): will replace the hook callback and options.
-
If your hook is defined in common code (both server and client), it will run
twice: once on the server and once on the client. If your intention is for the hook to run only once, make sure the hook is defined somewhere where only either the client or the server reads it. When in doubt, define your hooks on the server.
- Both
updateandremoveinternally make use offind, so be aware that
find/findOne hooks can fire for those methods.
-
findhooks are also fired when fetching documents forupdate,upsertandremovehooks. -
If using the
directversion to bypass a hook, any mongo operations done within nested
callbacks of the direct operation will also by default run as direct. You can use the following
line in a nested callback before the operation to unset the direct setting:
CollectionHooks.directEnv = new Meteor.EnvironmentVariable(false)
Maintainers
Maintained by Meteor Community Packages and in particular by:
- Mathieu Bouchard (matb33)
- Andrew Mao (mizzao)
- Simon Fridlund (zimme)
- Jan Dvorak (StorytellerCZ)
Contributors
- Eric Dobbertin (aldeed)
- Kevin Kaland (wizonesolutions)
- Jonathan James (jonjamz)
- Dave Workman (davidworkman9)
- Tarang Patel (Tarangp)
- Nathan Strauser (nate-strauser)
- Hubert OG (subhog)
- Richard Lai (rclai)
- Sahebjot Singh (raunaqrox)
- Aram Kocharyan (aramk)
- Pierre Ozoux (pierreozoux)
- Tom Coleman (tmeasday)
- Eric Jackson (repjackson)
- Koen Lav (KoenLav)