Question

I am getting this error when just getting a document from the database and then immediately saving it. It is accepted on the initial insert though, and looks like the date fields are empty even though they are required.

{ stack: [Getter/Setter],
message: ‘Cast to date failed for value “[object Object]”‘,
name: ‘CastError’,
type: ‘date’,
value:
{ millisecond: 0,
second: 0,
minute: 0,
hour: 0,
day: 21,
week: 38,
month: 8,
year: 2011 } }

This is the schema and query code that fails:

var Event = new Schema({
    id     : { type: String, index: true }
  , msg      : { type: String, lowercase: true, trim: true }
  , triggerOn      : { type: Date, required: true }
  , createdOn       : { type: Date, required: true }
  , triggered       : { type: Boolean, required: true }
});

exports.pullAndUpdateTest = function(){
    var Model = mongoose.model('Event');
    Model.find({ triggered: false }, function (err, docs) {
        if (err){
            console.log(err);
            return;
    }
    docs.forEach(function(doc, index, array){
        //date both appear to be null here
               console.log(doc.triggerOn);  //=> null / prints blank
        console.log(doc.createdOn); //=> null / prints blank

        doc.triggered = true;
        doc.save(function(err){ console.log(err)});
    });
});
}

Answer 1

Date.js is a very cool library, however the default implementation will create a mess in Node.js applications when working with MongoDB. I’d recommend you to use safe_datejs. You will be able to use Date.js function but you’re gonna have to convert the Date values to a Date.js object before calling any of the Date.js magical functions.

Example:

var safe_datejs = require('safe_datejs');
var today = new Date();
var unsafeToday = today.AsDateJs(); // Converting to Date.js object
var unsafeTomorrow = unsafeToday.clone().add({days:1}); // Work with Date.js a little
var tomorrow = unsafeTomorrow.AsRegularDate(); //converted back safe to be used with MongoDB

To change culture specific attributes, use safe_datejs.DateType.CultureInfo

More info: https://github.com/firebaseco/safe_datejs