parse-community / parse-community/parse-server

Allow to exclude fields updatedAt, createdAt

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#7,281 4 comments 2 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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type:feature
Dominant language
JavaScript
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Forks
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

New Feature / Enhancement Checklist
Current Limitation

The main purpose of excluding fields when fetching a Parse.Object is to avoid unnecessary data traffic, which can be a significant cost factor.

Even when excluding all fields with select([]), the following fields are always fetched: ['objectId', 'createdAt', 'updatedAt', 'ACL']. While the keys objectId, ACL may be technically required by Parse Server and SDKs to handle the object, the fields createdAt, updatedAt do seem less relevant and should be excludable.

Feature / Enhancement Description

Allow to exclude the fields createdAt, updatedAt.

Example Use Case

(none)

Alternatives / Workarounds

Use a MongoDB aggregate call to return a raw JSON, which has several disadvantages on the database and server side.

3rd Party References

(none)

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by tracing Parse.Object fetches using select([]), then inspect the query and serialization paths that preserve objectId, createdAt, updatedAt, and ACL. Check existing Parse Server query tests for field selection behavior. Done means createdAt and updatedAt can be excluded without breaking required object handling or existing fetch behavior.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
javascript, node.js
Domain
api, backend
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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