how do I insert an array of objects to mongodb using meteor? - mongodb

Question

How do I get a clean insert without extraneous characters being added when trying to insert an array of object. If I manually do an insert from mongodb shell I get the expected results, otherwise it doesn't seem to work.
What I'm trying to achieve is the results from mongodb shell:
db.test.insert([{name:"john"},{name:"jane"}]);
which yields:
db.test.find()
{ "_id" : ObjectId("53bb0768dc2469c1f440a3c2"), "name" : "john" }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("53bb0768dc2469c1f440a3c3"), "name" : "jane" }
But I don't get that, so I used the code snippet below to test several ways to insert the array of objects hoping to find the right combination:
test = new Meteor.Collection("test");
a = new Array();
a.push({name:"john"});
a.push({name:"jane"});
console.log(a);
test.insert(a);
console.log(a.toString());
test.insert(a.toString());
console.log(JSON.stringify(a));
test.insert(JSON.stringify(a));
test.insert([{name:"john"},{name:"jane"}]);
test.insert([{"name":"john"},{"name":"jane"}]);
What I get in the console:
[ { name: 'john' }, { name: 'jane' } ]
[object Object],[object Object]
[{"name":"john"},{"name":"jane"}]
What I get in the database:
db.test.find()
{ "0" : { "name" : "john" }, "1" : { "name" : "jane" }, "_id" : "SYkv79XLNQsWgkYmw" }
{ "0" : "[", "1" : "o", "2" : "b", "3" : "j", "4" : "e", "5" : "c", "6" : "t", "7" : " ", "8" : "O", "9" : "b", "10" : "j", "11" : "e", "12" : "c", "13" : "t", "14" : "]", "15" : ",", "16" : "[", "17" : "o", "18" : "b", "19" : "j", "20" : "e", "21" : "c", "22" : "t", "23" : " ", "24" : "O", "25" : "b", "26" : "j", "27" : "e", "28" : "c", "29" : "t", "30" : "]", "_id" : "SiQ3ZpGfeBqj4mXB2" }
{ "0" : "[", "1" : "{", "2" : "\"", "3" : "n", "4" : "a", "5" : "m", "6" : "e", "7" : "\"", "8" : ":", "9" : "\"", "10" : "j", "11" : "o", "12" : "h", "13" : "n", "14" : "\"", "15" : "}", "16" : ",", "17" : "{", "18" : "\"", "19" : "n", "20" : "a", "21" : "m", "22" : "e", "23" : "\"", "24" : ":", "25" : "\"", "26" : "j", "27" : "a", "28" : "n", "29" : "e", "30" : "\"", "31" : "}", "32" : "]", "_id" : "kKRiR8NjNJefBYRya" }
{ "0" : { "name" : "john" }, "1" : { "name" : "jane" }, "_id" : "RBrvkrw5xZaEGdczF" }
{ "0" : { "name" : "john" }, "1" : { "name" : "jane" }, "_id" : "2cfWJqHY4aJ6yF68s" }
I expected a simple 'test.insert(a)' to give me what I want, but it includes the array indexes. How do I build an array of objects to insert into mongodb from meteor without the array indexes? Stringify seemed to build a clean looking serialization of the array, but apparently I just don't know how to do this? The purpose of this is so I can build a complex array of objects in memory and do a bulk insert.

Answer 1

Meteor only lets you store root level documents as objects, if you give it an array it will try to convert it to an object. This is why you're getting this weird result. You would have to adjust your document to store arrays as part of the root document
test = new Meteor.Collection("test");
a = new Array();
a.push({name:"john"});
a.push({name:"jane"});
var doc = {
names: a
}
test.insert(a);
It won't be possible to store a document as [].

Answer 2

Template.first.rendered=function(){
var a=[];
a.push({name:"rahul"});
a.push({name:"vidu"});
Meteor.call("array", a , function(error,result){
});
};