Firestore query for subcollections on a deleted document - firebase

Question

When using the Firebase console it is possible to see all documents and collections, even subcollections where the path has "documents" that do not exist.
This is illustrated in the picture included here, and as stated in the docs and on the screenshot as well. These documents won't appear in queries or snapshots. So how does the console find these nested subcollections, when a query does not return them?
Is it possible, somehow, to list these documents. Since the console can do it, it seems there must be a way.
And if it is possible to find these documents, is it possible to create a query that fetches all the documents that are non-existant but limited to those that have a nested subcollection? (Since the set of all non-existant documents would be infinite)

Answer 1

The Admin SDK provides a listDocuments method with this description:
The document references returned may include references to "missing
documents", i.e. document locations that have no document present but
which contain subcollections with documents. Attempting to read such a
document reference (e.g. via .get() or .onSnapshot()) will return a
DocumentSnapshot whose .exists property is false.
Combining this with the example for listing subcollections, you could do something like the following:
// Admin SDK only
let collectionRef = firestore.collection('col');
return collectionRef.listDocuments().then(documentRefs => {
return firestore.getAll(documentRefs);
}).then(documentSnapshots => {
documentSnapshots.forEach(doc => {
if( !doc.exists ) {
console.log(`Found missing document: ${documentSnapshot.id}, getting subcollections`);
doc.getCollections().then(collections => {
collections.forEach(collection => {
console.log('Found subcollection with id:', collection.id);
});
});
}
});
});
Note that the Firebase CLI uses a different approach. Via the REST API, it queries all documents below a given path, without having to know their specific location first. You can see how this works in the recursive delete code here.

Answer 2

Is it possible to create a query that fetches all these subcollections that are nested under a document that does not exist.
Queries in Cloud Firestore are shallow, which means they only get documents from the collection that the query is run against. There is no way in Cloud Firestore to get documents from a top-level collection and other collections or subcollections in a single query. Firestore doesn't support queries across different collections in one go. A single query may only use properties of documents in a single collection or subcollection.
So in your case, even if one document does not exist (does not contain any properties), you can still query a collection that lives beneath it. With other words, you can query the queue subcollection that exist within -LFNX ... 7UjS document but you cannot query all queue subcollection within all documents. You can query only one subcollection at a time.
Edit:
According to your comment:
I want to find collections that are nested under documents that do not exist.
There is no way to find collections because you cannot query across different collections. You can only query against one. The simplest solution I can think of is to check if a document within your items collection doesn't exist (has no properties) and then create a query (items -> documentId -> queue), and check if has any results.
Edit2:
The Firebase Console is telling you through those document ids shown in italics that those documents just does not exist. Those documents do not exist because you didn't create them at all. What you did do, was only to create a subcollection under a document that never existed in the first place. With other words, it merely "reserves" an id for a document in that collection and then creates a subcollection under it. Typically, you should only create subcollections of documents that actually do exist but this is how it looks like when the document doesn't exist.
In Cloud Firestore documents and subcollections don't work like filesystem files and directories you're used. If you create a subcollection under a document, it doesn't implicitly create any parent documents. Subcollections are not tied in any way to a parent document. With other words, there is no physical document at that location but there is other data under the location.
In Firebase console those document ids are diplayed so you can navigate down the tree and get the subcollections and documents that exist beneath it. But in the same time the console is warning you that those document does not exist, by displaying their ids in italics. So you cannot display or use them because of the simple fact that there is no data beneath it. If you want to correct that, you have to write at least a property that can hold a value. In that way, those documents will hold some data so you can do whatever you want.
P.S. In Cloud Firestore, if you delete a document, its subcollections will continue to exist and this is because of the exact same reason I mentioned above.