Question

Is it possible yet, to preserve insertion order or set reliable timestamps in Meteor given that MongoDB doesn’t guarantee to return items in insertion order if no sort is specified, a document’s _id is randomly generated and setting a timestamp manually on insertion would depend upon the client’s clock?

Answer 1

I suggest a method.

Meteor.methods({
  addItem: function (doc) {
    doc.when = new Date;
    return Items.insert(doc);
  }
});

While the client will run this locally and set when to its own current time, the server’s timestamp takes priority and propagates to all subscribed clients, including the original client. You can sort on doc.when.

We’ll probably add hooks for setting timestamps automatically as part of document validations and permissions.