I have 3 collections
Companies: [{name:'Lamy'}]
Pens : [name:'Safari', company:ref::companies]
Writing Samples :[{title:'Post title', pen:ref::pens }]
I want to get all writing samples from from a particular pen company.
Is it possible to filter based on field values in a referenced document or do I need to restructure my firestore?
Example
const company = db.collection('companies').doc(form.penCompany);
db.collection('samples').where('pen.company', '==', company)
My guess is no and that I need to restructure my DB to include the company information nested in the sample.
You will need to restructure. A query on a collection can't reference documents from other collections - there are no SQL-like joins. Everything in the query must be in the same collection. This means you might have to duplicate data between collections. This is a common technique when working with NoSQL. It's call "denomralization".
Related
I use this code to get a collection snapshot from Firestore.
firestore().collection('project').where('userID', '==', authStore.uid).onSnapshot(onResult, onError);
This returns a huge amount of data, but I only need a few fields. Is it possible to query only a specific field? For example, if I only need the projectName and the creationDate fields.
Is it possible to query only a specific field?
No, that is not possbile. A Firestore listener fires on the document level. This means that you'll always get the entire document.
For example if I only need the projectName and the creationDate fields.
You cannot only get the value of a specific set of fields. It's the entire document or nothing. If you, however, only need to read those values and nothing more, then you should consider storing them in a separate document. This practice is called denormalization, and it's a common practice when it comes to NoSQL databases.
You might also take into consideration using the Firebase Realtime Database, for the duplicated data.
In the Security Rules! video #6 the suggestion is made to create a security rule using roles defined in a private_data sub collection with a single 'private' document:
allow update: if (get(/databases/$(database)/documents/restaurants/$(restaurantID)/private_data/private).data.roles[request.auth.uid] in ['editor', 'owner'];
Using the web API, how can I query the set of documents where a user has editor or owner permissions? I don't see that a where clause can reference sub-collection documents.
Something like
const q = query(
collection(db, 'restaurants'),
where(new FieldPath('private_data', 'private', 'roles', 'user_123'), 'in', ['editor', 'owner'])
);
Firestore queries can only filter documents based on the data in each document itself. There is no way to filter based on data in another document, either from the same collection or from another (sub)collection.
This means that while it is possible to restrict write and get (single-document read) operations based on the information in the roles subcollection, it is not possible to use those same documents in a query.
If you need this use-case, the common approach is to duplicate the necessary data from the subcollection(s) into the parent document, and the filter on it there. This complicating of data write to allow or simplify a certain read is a pattern you'll see quite regularly when dealing with NoSQL databases.
I have structured my data in Firebase such that I have a collection of 'users' and each user has various fields as well as a 'skillsIndustry' Array field which contain Maps items (that have fields 'experience' and 'industry').
Now I would like to query my collection of users so that I can ask for all users that have worked in 'Airlines' with experience code of >= 1
Is this possible at all? Or do I have to create sub collections and then use Collection Group Queries?
Many thanks
No, this is not possible. You can use array-contains to query for the entire object, as explained in this SO answer, but not to query with > or <.
You could create a subcollection, but you can probably find a solution based on the duplication of the data in the same document, which is a common approach in the NoSQL world.
For example, you could have some extra fields named airlinesExperience, shippingExperience, etc. Then you use the skillsIndustry Array field when you want to display all the skills and years of experience, but you use the xxxExperience fields when you want to query.
Another possibility would be to use a map of key/value pairs like
key = "Airlines" / value = 1
key = "Shipping" / value = 3
Then you can query with:
firebase
.firestore()
.collection('users')
.where('skillsIndustry.Shipping', '>', 2)
I have an Orders collection. It contains a field called venueId. And I'm querying against this field using isEqualTo. The venueId is the firebase user uid. I also have a venues collection. It contains this venueId and also has a list of VenueAdmins ids(These ids are also firebase user uids )The app is a point of sales app(pos). I need to query the orders collections so that valueAdmins and venueId see the correct stream. Is quite easy to query with venueId.. venueId,isEqualto, uid. I'm wondering what's the best approach to allow the venueAdmins see the stream as well.
|-Orders // collection
order. //doc
venueId:'2344567788999999'
|-Venues // collection
venue. //doc
venueAdmin: ['3333333333333','55555555555555555']
venueId:'2344567788999999'
My query builder so far: queryBuilder: (query) => query.where('venue.id', isEqualTo: uid)
Firestore does not have the capability to "join" documents from different collections in a single query. A single query can only consider documents in single collection at a time. The way you have your data structured now, it will require at least two queries. First, to find a venue, then second, to find the orders for an admin in a venue.
The only way to make this easier from the perspective of queries is to denormalize your data by duplicating venue data into the order documents. If each order also had a list of admins, then you could reduce this down to a single query.
I am trying to fetch all documents whose sub-collection contain a specific document ID. Is there any way to do this?
For example, if the boxed document under 'enquiries' sub-collection exists, then I need the boxed document ID from 'books' collection. I couldn't figure out how to go backwards to get the parent document ID.
I make the assumption that all the sub-collections have the same name, i.e. enquiries. Then, you could do as follows:
Add a field docId in your enquiries document that contains the document ID.
Execute a Collection Group query in order to get all the documents with the desired docId value (Firestore.instance.collectionGroup("enquiries").where("docId", isEqualTo: "ykXB...").getDocuments()).
Then, you loop over the results of the query and for each DocumentReference you call twice the parent() methods (first time you will get the CollectionReference and second time you will get the DocumentReference of the parent document).
You just have to use the id property and you are done.
Try the following:
Firestore.instance.collection("books").where("author", isEqualTo: "Arumugam").getDocuments().then((value) {
value.documents.forEach((result) {
var id = result.documentID;
Firestore.instance.collection("books").document(id).collection("enquiries").getDocuments().then((querySnapshot) {
querySnapshot.documents.forEach((result) {
print(result.data);
});
First you need to retrieve the id under the books collection, to be able to do that you have to do a query for example where("author", isEqualTo: "Arumugam"). After retrieving the id you can then do a query to retrieve the documents inside the collection enquiries
For example, if the boxed document under 'enquiries' sub-collection exists, then I need the boxed document ID from 'books' collection.
There is no way you can do that in a single go.
I couldn't figure out how to go backwards to get the parent document ID.
There is no going back in Firestore as you probably were thinking. In Firebase Realtime Database we have a method named getParent(), which does exactly what you want but in Firestore we don't.
Queries in Firestore are shallow, meaning that it only get items from the collection that the query is run against. Firestore doesn't support queries across different collections in one go. A single query may only use the properties of documents in a single collection. So the solution to solving your problem is to perform two get() calls. The first one would be to check that document for existence in the enquiries subcollection, and if it exists, simply create another get() call to get the document from the books collection.
Renaud Tarnec's answer is great for fetching the IDs of the relevant books.
If you need to fetch more than the ID, there is a trick you could use in some scenarios. I imagine your goal is to show some sort of an index of all books associated with a particular enquiry ID. If the data you'd like to show in that index is not too long (can be serialized in less than 1500 bytes) and if it is not changing frequently, you could try to use the document ID as the placeholder for that data.
For example, let's say you wanted to display a list of book titles and authors corresponding to some enquiryId. You could create the book ID in the collection with something like so:
// Assuming admin SDK
const bookId = nanoid();
const author = 'Brandon Sanderson';
const title = 'Mistborn: The Final Empire';
// If title + author are not unique, you could add the bookId to the array
const uniquePayloadKey = Buffer.from(JSON.stringify([author, title])).toString('base64url');
booksColRef.doc(uniquePayloadKey).set({ bookId })
booksColRef.doc(uniquePayloadKey).collection('enquiries').doc(enquiryId).set({ enquiryId })
Then, after running the collection group query per Renaud Tarnec's answer, you could extract that serialized information with a regexp on the path, and deserialize. E.g.:
// Assuming Web 9 SDK
const books = query(collectionGroup(db, 'enquiries'), where('enquiryId', '==', enquiryId));
return getDocs(books).then(snapshot => {
const data = []
snapshot.forEach(doc => {
const payload = doc.ref.path.match(/books\/(.*)\/enquiries/)[1];
const [author, title] = JSON.parse(atob(details));
data.push({ author, title })
});
return data;
});
The "store payload in ID" trick can be used only to present some basic information for your child-driven search results. If your book document has a lot of information you'd like to display once the user clicks on one of the books returned by the enquiry, you may want to store this in separate documents whose IDs are the real bookIds. The bookId field added under the unique payload key allows such lookups when necessary.
You can reuse the same data structure for returning book results from different starting points, not just enquiries, without duplicating this structure. If you stored many authors per book, for example, you could add an authors sub-collection to search by. As long as the information you want to display in the resulting index page is the same and can be serialized within the 1500-byte limit, you should be good.
The (quite substantial) downside of this approach is that it is not possible to rename document IDs in Firestore. If some of the details in the payload change (e.g. an admin fixes a book titles), you will need to create all the sub-collections under it and delete the old data. This can be quite costly - at least 1 read, 1 write, and 1 delete for every document in every sub-collection. So keep in mind it may not be pragmatic for fast changing data.
The 1500-byte limit for key names is documented in Usage and Limits.
If you are concerned about potential hotspots this can generate per Best Practices for Cloud Firestore, I imagine that adding the bookId as a prefix to the uniquePayloadKey (with a delimiter that allows you to throw it away) would do the trick - but I am not certain.