Getting a Meteor method to return a function? - meteor

Question

I want to define a server-side Meteor method that, when called, will run a function on the client.
Ultra simple example below - I want this method to take a parameter, and when called, will run console.log(parameter) on the client side console.
Meteor.methods({
consoleLogOnClient: function(text){
var log = function(){
console.log(text);
};
return log();
}
});
But when I do:
Meteor.call('consoleLogOnClient', 'THIS MESSAGE SHOULD APPEAR ON THE CLIENT CONSOLE');
the message gets logged in the server console and nothing appears in the client console.
Ok, fair enough. Maybe I'll just return the function code itself and store that in a variable and then run it. But it doesn't work either.
Meteor.methods({
consoleLogOnClient: function(text){
var log = function(){
console.log(text);
};
return log;
}
});
var myFunction = Meteor.call('consoleLogOnClient', 'THIS MESSAGE SHOULD APPEAR ON THE CLIENT CONSOLE');
myFunction();

Answer 1

http://docs.meteor.com/#meteor_methods
They should return an EJSON-able value or throw an exception.
EJSON: http://docs.meteor.com/#ejson
So, the answer is that you can't send a function from the server to the client, since functions aren't EJSON values. But your real problem is probably that you want to send a function; I can't imagine why you want to do that. Send data instead.

Answer 2

You can achieve a desired result with the anticoders:client-call package. It allows you to define client-side methods that you'd be able to run from the server side.
For example, if you define:
Meteor.ClientCall.methods({
'consoleLog': function(message) {
console.log(message);
},
});
And set userId as clientId for the methods:
Deps.autorun(function() {
Meteor.ClientCall.setClientId(Meteor.userId());
});
Then on the server side you can simply call:
Meteor.ClientCall.apply(userId, 'consoleLog', ['THIS MESSAGE SHOULD APPEAR IN THE CLIENT CONSOLE']);