Inserting spurious nulls in call to update an array

1

I have a fixture that is prepopulating a set of polls the app uses. I’ve created some code to recognize whether the fixture is different than what is in mongo and updates mongo. It seems to working swimmingly for most records but every so often (seemingly randomly) inserts a bunch of nulls in an array field.

The fixture has the format:

      qtext: 'What\'s your favorite candle scent?',
      category: 'style',
      thing: 'scented candle',
      market: ['consumer'],
      active: true,
      image: 'candles.jpg',
      choices: [
        { active: true, text: 'Lavender', votes: 0 },
        { active: true, text: 'Clean Cotton', votes: 0 },
        { active: true, text: 'Cinnamon', votes: 0 },
        { active: true, text: 'Apple', votes: 0 },
        { active: true, text: 'Vanilla', votes: 0 },
        { active: true, text: 'Other', votes: 0 },
        { active: true, text: 'Who cares about candles?', votes: 0 },
      ]
    },

The update code to check on the choices field looks like this:

    console.log("\t+checking existing choices");
        for (var choice in corePolls[i].choices) {
          if (storedPolls[i].choices[choice]) {
            // do we need to change the text?
            if (storedPolls[i].choices[choice].text != corePolls[i].choices[choice].text) {
              console.log("\t\t*updating choice text to: " + corePolls[i].choices[choice].text)
              Polls.update({_id: storedPolls[i]._id, "choices.text": storedPolls[i].choices[choice].text},
                {$set: {"choices.$.text": corePolls[i].choices[choice].text}});
            } else {
              // check whether we inactivate the current choice.  This assumes we wouldn't
              // both change the name and change the active flag
              if (storedPolls[i].choices[choice].active == undefined ||
                (storedPolls[i].choices[choice].active &&
                  corePolls[i].choices[choice].active != storedPolls[i].choices[choice].active ) ) {
                console.log("\t\t*updating choice " + storedPolls[i].choices[choice].text + " active flag to: " + corePolls[i].choices[choice].active)
                Polls.update({_id: storedPolls[i]._id, "choices.text": storedPolls[i].choices[choice].text},
                  {$set: {"choices.$.active": corePolls[i].choices[choice].active}});
              }
            }
          } else {
            console.log("\t\t*inserting new choice: " + corePolls[i].choices[choice].text)
            // we need to insert this new choice
            Polls.update({_id: storedPolls[i]._id},
                {$addToSet: {"choices": corePolls[i].choices[choice] } } );
          } // insert new choice

And the weird inserts I’m getting (again, every once in a while) result in this:

	"_id" : "St2D9qncYhvBL84eM",
	"qtext" : "What is your favorite breakfast cereal?",
	"category" : "breakfast",
	"thing" : "breakfast cereal",
	"market" : [
		"consumer"
	],
	"active" : true,
	"image" : "cereals.jpg",
	"choices" : [
		{
			"active" : true,
			"text" : "Captain Crunch",
			"votes" : 0
		},
		{
			"active" : true,
			"text" : "Raisin Bran",
			"votes" : 0
		},
		{
			"active" : true,
			"text" : "Cinnamon Toast Crunch",
			"votes" : 0
		},
		{
			"active" : true,
			"text" : "Oatmeal",
			"votes" : 0
		},
		{
			"active" : true,
			"text" : "Frosted Flakes",
			"votes" : 0
		},
		{
			"active" : true,
			"text" : "Other",
			"votes" : 0
		},
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		null,
		{
			"votes" : 1
		}
	]
}

Thanks in advance for helping out.

2

Hi @nsquared,
can you edit your post putting the code in a code block so it’s easier for others to read and help you out?
You can do that by clicking the button for preformatted text or wrapping the code in triple backticks like so:

```
type or paste code here
```
1 Like
3

might the reason be that i’m selecting the row based on text: and then updating same field?