Meteor.js Collection empty on Client

Question

Why is it that myCollection.find().fetch() returns an empty array [] even though the call is made within if(data){...}? Doesn't the if statement ensure that the collection has been retrieved before executing the console.log()?

Template.chart.rendered = function() {

        var data = myCollection.find().fetch();

        if(data) {
            console.log(data);
        }

        $('#chart').render();

}

This returns [] in the browser Javascript console.

Answer 1

You could use count() instead which returns the number of results. data itself would be an empty array, [] which isn't falsey ( [] == true ).

Also don't use fetch() unless you're going to use the raw data for it because its quite taxing. You can loop through it with .forEach if you need to.

var data = myCollection.find();

if(data.count())
  console.log(data);

//If you need it for something/Not sure if this is right but just an example
$('#chart').render(data.fetch())

Answer 2

The problem is that you have to wait for data from the server. When you just use Template.name.rendered function it is immediately invoked. You have to use Template.name.helpers function to wait for data from the server. Everything is described in the documentation.