Removing old data (automatically)

1

Hello,
I’m trying to automatically remove old data, data that is 30 minutes old should be deleted from the mongoDB.

My assumption is to write something like this (server-sided)

Meteor.startup(() => {

this.autorun(function(){
var currDate = new Date();
var hours = currDate.getHours();
var minutes = currDate.getMinutes();
var total = hours*24 + minutes;
var minuteMargin = 30;
var sum = total - minuteMargin;
Collection.remove( {‘createdAt’: $gt sum});
});

2

Hey, first things first, I think you can use getMinutes() and setMinutes() methods. Please have a look at the documentation :slight_smile:

So basically by using these methods you can update the logic like this

const date = new Date()
date.setMinutes(date.getMinutes() - 30)
// So date should point out 30 mins earlier from now

If you desire removing old data every 30 mins, you can create a cron job for that by using percolade:sycned-cron. Go ahead and take a look at the documentation :slight_smile:

You can create a cron job that runs approximately every 30-31 mins to remove old data.

Once you create the cron job, what you should do is calling SyncedCron.start()

(Server-side)

Meteor.startup() => {
   SyncedCron.start();
}
1 Like
3

Or you could just use a setInterval

this.autorun won’t work in this case because there isn’t a reactive dependency in your function, especially not one that is invalidated on a schedule.

2 Likes
4

Or, do (virtually) nothing and let MongoDB remove the documents for you.

The only thing you need to do is set up an index on the collection with an expireAfterSeconds property on a date field. In Meteor, you set the index in the server’s Meteor.startup() with one of the following methods:

// The "traditional" way
Meteor.startup(() => {
  someCollection._ensureIndex({ someDateField: 1 }, { expireAfterSeconds: 1800 });
});

// The "modern" way
Meteor.startup(async () => {
  await someCollection.rawCollection().createIndex({ someDateField: 1 }, { expireAfterSeconds: 1800 });
});
4 Likes