Mongoose saves createdAt as Double not Date

Question

I want mongoose to save createdAt field as Date object not Double. please help.

this is my schema

const allSchema = new mongoose.Schema({ any: {} }, {
    safe: false,
    strict: false,
    versionKey: false,
    bufferCommands: false,
    validateBeforeSave: false,
    timestamps: { createdAt: 'createdAt', updatedAt: 'updated_at' },
});

This is how i am using it. I am setting the createdAt using javascript Date object. But it is saved as Double. I need it to be saved as Date to be able to use the TTL index on those documents to expire them after X seconds.

const con = mongoose.createConnection(uri, opts);
const model = con.model('allSchema', allSchema, collectionName, true);
model.then(async (m) => {

        // here
        fields.createdAt = Date.now();

        // check if we have fields as objects need to be stringify before insert
         Object.keys(fields).forEach((key) => {
            const val = fields[key] || '';
             if (typeof val === 'object') {
                 fields[key] = JSON.stringify(val).toString();
             }
         });
        return m.collection.insertOne(fields);
    });

Thank you in advance

Answer 1

Date.now() - returns a number. If you need to store a date like BSON Date object use new Date(Date.now()) instead.

Answer 2

Instead using created_at and updated_at in timestamp use:

toJSON: { virtuals: true }, timestamps: true

This will automatically add created_at and updated_at fields.