Mongoengine creation_time attribute in Document

Question

I am trying to add a creation_time attribute to my documents. The following would be an example:

import datetime

class MyModel(mongoengine.Document):
    creation_date = mongo.DateTimeField()
    modified_date = mongo.DateTimeField(default=datetime.datetime.now)

Django models have built in parameter for their DateTimeField objects like add_now, etc., but MongoEngine does not support this.

I am wondering if best way to do this is the following:

m,created = MyModel.objects.get_or_create()
if created:
    m.creation_date = datetime.datetime.now()

or if there is a better, nicer way.

Solution 1

You could override the save method.

class MyModel(mongoengine.Document):
    creation_date = mongo.DateTimeField()
    modified_date = mongo.DateTimeField(default=datetime.datetime.now)

    def save(self, *args, **kwargs):
        if not self.creation_date:
            self.creation_date = datetime.datetime.now()
        self.modified_date = datetime.datetime.now()
        return super(MyModel, self).save(*args, **kwargs)

Solution 2

As an aside, the creation time is stamped into the _id attribute - if you do:

YourObject.id.generation_time

Will give you a datetime stamp.

Solution 3

One nice solution is reusing a single signal handler for multiple documents.

class User(Document):
    # other fields...
    created_at = DateTimeField(required=True, default=datetime.utcnow)
    updated_at = DateTimeField(required=True)

class Post(Document):
    # other fields...
    created_at = DateTimeField(required=True, default=datetime.utcnow)
    updated_at = DateTimeField(required=True)

def update_timestamp(sender, document, **kwargs):
    document.updated_at = datetime.utcnow()

signals.pre_save.connect(update_timestamp, sender=User)
signals.pre_save.connect(update_timestamp, sender=Post)

Be careful to assign a callable and not a fixed-value as the default, for example default=datetime.utcnow without (). Some of the other answers on this page are incorrect and would cause created_at for new documents to always be set to the time your app was first loaded.

It's also always better to store UTC dates (datetime.utcnow instead of datetime.now) in your database.

Solution 4

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
from mongoengine import *
from mongoengine import signals
from datetime import datetime

class User(Document):
    email = StringField(required=True, unique=True)
    first_name = StringField(max_length=50)
    last_name = StringField(max_length=50)
    # audit fields
    created_on = DateTimeField(default=datetime.now())
    updated_on = DateTimeField(default=datetime.now())

    @classmethod
    def pre_save(cls, sender, document, **kwargs):
        document.updated_on = datetime.now()

signals.pre_save.connect(User.pre_save, sender=User)

Solution 5

If you are using the timestamp field in a bunch of Documents you can keep your code DRY by creating an abstract Document instead.

from datetime import datetime
from mongoengine import Document

class CreateUpdateDocument(Document):
    meta = {
        'abstract': True
    }

    # last updated timestamp
    updated_at = DateTimeField(default=datetime.now)

    # timestamp of when entry was created
    created_at = DateTimeField(default=datetime.now)

    def save(self, *args, **kwargs):
        if not self.created_at:
            self.created_at = datetime.now()
        self.updated_at = datetime.now()
        return super(CreateUpdateDocument, self).save(*args, **kwargs)

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