At the top of a file can I put something like...
var collection = db.mongo.collection('test', function(err, collection){return collection});
and then in any of the files functions use collection.find() etc
I guess my question is... is collection a reference to the collection or a copy of the data?
If data in the collection changes will i still get up to date data by querying the collection variable?
Thanks!!
Collection is a reference for the collection object. Until you issue a find (or findOne) you don't have real data in your hands. And even then, it returns a Cursor object leaving the collection object always untouched.
Storing both Collections or cursors will not store your data. remember that you could be dealing with millions of records. dealing with data itself could be overwhelming for the server memory. Instead, mongo returns cursors and references for you to filter away. In PHP you have a function called iterator_to_array that you can pass it the cursor and it converts to an array of data. In javascript I don't know if there is such functions. But I guess it doesn't makes sense to be such functions. Filter the information until you have manageable data size, then iterate over the cursor and do your thing. If you have something like a config array or such, intead of several documents, try to store everything on one and fetch it with the findOne() function.
But in the end I guess that's just a design question whether your data is possible to filter or not.