Insert new collection after function runs on server - meteor

Question

When I return the geocode from googles API I'm trying to save it into my database. I've been trying to use the code below, to just insert a Test document with no luck. I think it has something to do with meteor being asynchronous. If I run the insert function before the googleMapsClient.geocode function it works fine. Can someone show me what I'm doing wrong.
Meteor.methods({
'myTestFunction'() {
googleMapsClient.geocode({
address: 'test address'
}, function(err, response) {
if (!err) {
Test.insert({test: 'test name'});
}
});
}
});

Answer 1

I see now where you got the idea to run the NPM library on the client side, but this is not what you really want here. You should be getting some errors on the server side of your meteor instance when you run the initial piece of code you gave us here. The problem is that the google npm library runs in it's own thread, this prevents us from using Meteor's methods. The easiest thing you could do is wrap the function with Meteor.wrapAsync so it would look something like this.
try {
var wrappedGeocode = Meteor.wrapAsync(googleMapsClient.geocode);
var results = wrappedGeocode({ address : "testAddress" });
console.log("results ", results);
Test.insert({ test : results });
} catch (err) {
throw new Meteor.Error('error code', 'error message');
}
You can find more info by looking at this thread, there are others dealing with the same issue as well

Answer 2

You should run the googleMapsClient.geocode() function on the client side, and the Test.insert() function on the server side (via a method). Try this:
Server side
Meteor.methods({
'insertIntoTest'(json) {
Test.insert({results: json.results});
}
});
Client side
googleMapsClient.geocode({
address: 'test address'
}, function(err, response) {
if (!err) {
Meteor.call('insertIntoTest', response.json);
}
});

Answer 3

Meteor Methods should be available on the both the server and client sides. Therefore make sure that your method is accessible by server; via proper importing on /server/main.js or proper folder structuring.
(If a method contains a secret logic run on the server, it should be isolated from the method runs on both server & client, though)