Add ability to get local collections instance

[ziedmahdi]

after defining a new local collection:
var collection = new Mongo.Collection(null);

and assigning a name for it:
collection._name = collection._collection.name = 'a_name_so_i_can_get_it';

we can later retrieve it with:
var sameCollection = Mongo.Collection.get('a_name_so_i_can_get_it');

[ziedmahdi]

@dburles is this package still maintained?

[dburles]

Sorry @ziedmahdi I meant to get back to your PR. What's the reason that you've added this feature?

[ziedmahdi]

So that packages like msavin:mongol and babrahams:constellation can show the content of local collections. They are using your package to get the collection instance.

When we define a local collection we pass null to the constructor.
var collection = new Mongo.Collection(null);

and like that it will be saved with no name in your arrays of instance.

CollectionExtensions.addExtension(function (name, options) {
  instances.push({
    name: name,
    instance: this,
    options: options
  });
});

and finding it will be like impossible (well if there is more then one local collection).

So, instead of only searching based on instances.$.name we can also search using instances.$.instance._name.

and after defining a local collection, you can modify it's name

var collection = new Mongo.Collection(null);
collection._name = 'a_name_so_i_can_get_it';
var sameCollection = Mongo.Collection.get('a_name_so_i_can_get_it');

Voilà!!

[dburles]

I mean, I get that, but I'm not sure on the real world use. I gather it will be up to the user to define a name for any local collections they've created so that this package can become aware of them? That seems kind of strange given that the very idea of this package is providing the ability to gather/lookup collections without having to do anything special from the users point of view.

So I am guessing that the main reason you're adding this feature is so that your local collections can be viewed by mongol?

[ziedmahdi]

For now, the only way (that I know) to give a local collection a name is to alter the _nameattribute.

For me, the main reason, was that rubaxa:sortable could not get the local collection instance that I passed. When I got it to work with rubaxa:sortable, I thought to try it with msavin:mongol and it worked. Basically, this patch will allow any package/project to pass strings instead of collection instances even for local collections.