Velo by Wix: Side effect wix-data saving methods
The wix-data methods for saving data has a side effect that I have spent a few hours debugging. In this post, I share how it goes
We have three methods for manipulation of the database collection that has the same side effect. I found this behavior when it broke my logic in the data hook.
The pasted item is mutating after any of these methods is done:
wixData.insert("myCollection", item)wixData.update("myCollection", item)wixData.save("myCollection", item)
So, consider the code example where we output to console a new item before and after inserting it into a collection.
import wixData from 'wix-data';
(async () => {
const item = { title: 'hello' };
console.log(1, item);
const result = await wixData.insert('notes', item);
console.log(2, item);
console.log(3, result === item);
})();In the console:
1 {"title":"hello"}
2 {"title":"hello","_createdDate":"2020-11-21T18:34:29.050Z","_updatedDate":"2020-11-21T18:34:29.050Z","_id":"6e616318-ffdb-4954-9529-84c6a63f5393"}
3 trueWe can see above what, after inserting, the item is mutating it has new properties. And the method will return the same item which was passed.
wixData.update() and wixData.save() will have the same behavior.
How it affects
In my case, I used a data hook that first saves a new user to private collection (only for admins), and then it creates a new row for public members collection with part of open the user data.
backend/data.js
export async function Members_afterInsert(item) {
await wixData.insert('MembersPrivate', item);
/**
* Here I had a mutated item
* after inserting it into a Private database.
*/
}I had a mutated item after inserting it into a Private database, and it created a bug.
For fixing, I have to copy the item for inserting. I use the object spread operator:
// Creates a copy of item
await wixData.insert('MembersPrivate', { ...item });Methods for multiple items
We also have methods that can work with a number of items. Let’s consider three of these which use to save data:
wixData.bulkInsert("myCollection", [item1, item2])wixData.bulkUpdate("myCollection", [item1, item2])wixData.bulkSave("myCollection", [item1, item2])
We can get to repeat the experiment. These methods accept an array of items.
import wixData from 'wix-data';
(async () => {
const a = { title: 'a' };
const b = { title: 'b' };
console.log(1, a, b);
const result = await wixData.bulkInsert('notes', [a, b]);
console.log(2, a, b);
console.log(3, result);
})();In the console:
1 {title: "a"} {title: "b"}
2 {title: "a"} {title: "b"}
3 {
errors: [],
inserted: 2,
insertedItemIds: [
"8e518e07-5ba9-46bf-8db0-b9231c6f5926",
"4d90b85a-8449-4213-978f-ef0f8bec275b"
],
length: 2,
skipped: 0,
updated: 0,
updatedItemIds: [],
}Great, bulk methods work differently. They don’t mutate the passed items and don’t return the mutated items back. The successfully done bulk methods return the Promise<WixDataBulkResult> that contains the info about the changes.
Conclusion
The understanding of how to work the platform is an important thing. If I catch the bugs that grow from a misunderstanding of some of the processes, then I prefer to spend time searching, experiments, and testing it.
When the platform is not a black box for you, this saves more time than you have spent learning it.
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Originally published at https://shoonia.site on November 22, 2020.
