Mongoose use only createdAt timestamp

Question

I have the following message schema in mongoose:

var messageSchema = mongoose.Schema({
  userID: { type: ObjectId, required: true, ref: 'User' },
  text:   { type: String, required: true }
},
{
  timestamps: true
});

Is there anyway to ignore the updatedAt timestamp? Messages won't be updated so updatedAt will be wasted space

score 74 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 23 '18 at 15:36

74

Maybe even better with Mongoose v5 is to do the following;

const schema = new Schema({
  // Your schema...
}, {
  timestamps: { createdAt: true, updatedAt: false }
})

answered Aug 23 '18 at 15:36

robinvdvleuten

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cyberwombat · Accepted Answer · 2016-08-11T23:39:42.723

29

Edit I've amended the answer to reflect the better option to use the default as per @JohnnyHK

You can handle this yourself by declaring the createdAt (or whatever you want to call it) in your schema:

mongoose.Schema({
  created: { type: Date, default: Date.now }
  ...

Alternatively we can also update values on new document in a pre save hook:

messageSchema.pre('save', function (next) {
  if (!this.created) this.created = new Date;
  next();
})

Along those lines is also the flag isNew which you can use to check if a document is new.

messageSchema.pre('save', function (next) {
  if (this.isNew) this.created = new Date;
  next();
})

edited Aug 11 '16 at 23:39

answered Aug 11 '16 at 21:24

cyberwombat

38,105
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3

You can skip the middleware if you define a default: `created: { type: Date, default: Date.now }` – JohnnyHK Aug 11 '16 at 22:46
Yes of course. My bad. I've had weird unwanted effects from defaults that I explicitly write it all out now but in this case it's much better. – cyberwombat Aug 11 '16 at 23:36

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 12 '18 at 20:49

Older topic but there may be a better option depending on your schema... If you're sticking with the default of having mongodb/mongoose auto-gen _id, there's already a timestamp built in. If all you need is "created" and not "updated" just use...

document._id.getTimestamp();

From MongoDB docs here... ObjectId.getTimestamp()

And Here... stackoverflow

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 23 '21 at 13:26

Mongoose timestamp interface has these optional fields.

interface SchemaTimestampsConfig {
    createdAt?: boolean | string;
    updatedAt?: boolean | string;
    currentTime?: () => (Date | number);
  }

We can pass the boolean for the field we want(createdAt: true and updatedAt: true will add both fields). We can use the currentTime function to overwrite the date format.

example:

import mongoose from 'mongoose';

const { Schema } = mongoose;
const annotationType = ['NOTES', 'COMMENTS'];
const referenceType = ['TASKS', 'NOTES'];
const AnnotationSchema = new Schema(
  {
    sellerOrgId: {
      type: String,
      required: true,
    },
    createdById: {
      type: String,
      required: true,
    },
    annotationType: {
      type: String,
      enum: annotationType,
    },
    reference: {
      id: { type: String, index: true },
      type: {
        type: String,
        enum: referenceType,
      },
    },
    data: Schema.Types.Mixed,
  },
  { timestamps: { createdAt: true },
);
const AnnotationModel = mongoose.models.annotation || mongoose.model('annotation', AnnotationSchema);
export { AnnotationModel, AnnotationSchema };

Mongoose use only createdAt timestamp

4 Answers4