chatra:safe-update

Make Meteor’s collection.update/collection.updateAsync safer by preventing unintended updates and enforcing best practices.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Installation
• Usage
  • Prevent Empty Selector Updates
  • Enforce Modifier Operators
  • Configuration
• Examples
• Tests
• License

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Introduction

The chatra:safe-update package enhances the safety of MongoDB update operations in Meteor applications by:

• Preventing updates with empty selectors unless explicitly allowed.
• Ensuring that updates use modifier operators (e.g., $set, $inc) unless the replace option is specified.
• Providing configuration options to include or exclude specific collections.

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Installation

meteor add chatra:safe-update

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Compatibility

• Meteor Version 3 and Above: Fully compatible, using the new asynchronous Meteor collections’ methods.
• Meteor Version 2: Maintains compatibility with synchronous methods.

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Usage

Prevent Empty Selector Updates

By default, the package throws an error if you attempt to perform an update with an empty selector:

// Throws an error
MyCollection.update({}, { $set: { field: 'value' } });

To allow updates with an empty selector, pass allowEmptySelector: true in the options:

// Allowed
MyCollection.update({}, { $set: { field: 'value' } }, { allowEmptySelector: true });

Enforce Modifier Operators

The package ensures that you use modifier operators (e.g., $set, $inc) in your updates:

// Throws an error
MyCollection.update({ _id: 'docId' }, { field: 'value' });

To replace a document entirely, pass replace: true in the options:

// Allowed
MyCollection.update({ _id: 'docId' }, { field: 'value' }, { replace: true });

Configuration

To configure the package behavior, use the setSafeUpdateConfig function provided by the package:

import { setSafeUpdateConfig } from 'meteor/chatra:safe-update';

setSafeUpdateConfig({
  except: ['logs'], // Collections to exclude from safety checks
  only: ['users', 'posts'], // Only apply safety checks to these collections
});

• except: An array of collection names to exclude from the safety checks.
• only: An array of collection names to include in the safety checks (all others are excluded).

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Examples

import { Mongo } from 'meteor/mongo';

const Messages = new Mongo.Collection('messages');

// Safe update with modifier
Messages.update({ _id: 'msgId' }, { $set: { text: 'Updated message' } });
await Messages.updateAsync({ _id: 'msgId' }, { $set: { text: 'Updated message' } });

// Unsafe update without modifier (throws error)
Messages.update({ _id: 'msgId' }, { text: 'Updated message' }); // Throws error
await Messages.updateAsync({ _id: 'msgId' }, { text: 'Updated message' }); // Throws error

// Replacing document with replace option
Messages.update({ _id: 'msgId' }, { text: 'Updated message' }, { replace: true });
await Messages.updateAsync({ _id: 'msgId' }, { text: 'Updated message' }, { replace: true });

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Tests

The package includes a comprehensive test suite. To run the tests:

meteor test-packages ./

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License

This package is licensed under the MIT License.