Get auto-Id by time - firebase

In my app I use Firebase's childByAutoId() (swift) or .push() (web) to insert some data in the following format:
- events
- $autoId
- time:
- name:
- $autoId
- time:
- name:
Where $autoId are the randomly generated keys Firebase makes. time is the epoch time of when the data was pushed.
I want to allow users to modify each inserted entry's time. However, I want to keep the nodes under events sorted by their key and by time which Firebase naturally does when you use .push(). But if they modify the time so that it should actually be in a different order, the entries won't be sorted correctly.
Is there a way to generate an id by the modified time so that if it were inserted into events it would be in the right order? That way I could just delete the old entry and insert the new one while just duplicating the data.

Since the algorithm for Firebase's push IDs is well documented, you could easily modify the function to generate them based on a specific timestamp.
But I'd recommend instead keeping the necessary values as named properties for each child node. If you need to be able to sort by both creation and modification time, keep two separate properties. That way you won't have to depend on the behavior of the push IDs, but instead use more explicitly named properties to accomplish what you need.

Related

Preventing timestamp overlaps in Firestore collection

This is a follow-up/elaboration to a previous question of mine.
In the case of a collection of documents containing a time range represented by two timestamp fields (start and end), how does one go about guaranteeing that two documents don't get added with overlapping time ranges?
Say I had the following JavaScript on form submit:
var bookingsRef = db.collection('bookings')
.where('start', '<', booking.end)
.where('end', '>', booking.start);
bookingsRef.get().then(snapshot => {
// if a booking is found (hence there is an overlap), display error
// if booking is not found (hence there is no overlap), create booking
});
Now if two people were to submit overlapping bookings at the same time, could transactions be used (either on the client or the server) to guarantee that in between the get and add calls no other documents were created that would invalidate the original collection get query where clauses.
Or would my option be using some sort of security create rule that checks for other document time overlaps prior to allowing a new write (if this is at all possible)? One approach to guarantee document uniqueness via security rules seems to be exposing field values in the document ID, but I'm not entirely sure how exposing the start and end timestamp values in the ID would allow a rule to check for overlapping time ranges.
I think transaction is proper approach. According to the documentation:
..., if a transaction reads documents and another client
modifies any of those documents, Cloud Firestore retries the
transaction. This feature ensures that the transaction runs on
up-to-date and consistent data.
This seems to be an answer to your problem. All reads will be retried, if anything will change in the meantime. I think transaction mechanism is exactly for that reason.

Doctrine innerOrder[int] column implementation for manual sort order control

I have two tables in my app's schema: Event and Game (one-to-many). Games are ordered by datetime field. But sometimes there can be games played in parallel (same datetime), but the user should be able to set their relative order.
I've added innerOrder (int) field with simple idea: it should have autogenerated value that can be changed on reorder (exchange with neighbor record). But I can't achieve this behavior with Doctrine: GeneratedValue can't be used twice / with separate field (just don't work this way).
On the next attempt I've tried to do it without autogeneration. But I need some initial value on insert, for example: MAX(innerOrder) (better - to set it automatically of course).
I can't do it in prePersist or similar methods - don't have access to repository class. And don't want to do it with additional query in controller - not only because of additional code I should insert each time (get max value from table, set inner order), but I'm afraid of possible conflicts (when two users are adding Games in parallel).
How should I achieve expected behavior (maybe, I'm totally wrong here)?
There is no need in achieving this behavior with Doctrine, you can manage this value from aggregate root. I.e when you attach the Game to the Event you can update it innerOrder value according to maximum of currently attached games + 1. Conflicts could be easily avoided with different kind of locks on Event you edit (i.e fetcing it with doctrine write lock or some kind of shared locks or mutex (see symfony/lock))
After it you can specify your relation confiration to fetch it with given order using this documentation
https://www.doctrine-project.org/projects/doctrine-orm/en/2.6/tutorials/ordered-associations.html
My two cents: when creating/modifying an event, you can check if there's one already at the same time (default innerOrder is 0, or even count(*) of the events at the same time). You can issue a warning when there's another event, ask for the order, or take to a form where you can manually reassign the order of the events.

Using timestamp as an Attribute in DynamoDB

I'm quite new to DynamoDB, but have some experience in Cassandra. I'm trying to adapt a pattern I followed in Cassandra, where each column represented a timestamped event, and wondering if it will carry over gracefully into DynamoDB or if I need to change my approach.
My goal is to query a set of documents within a date range by using the milliseconds-since-epoch timestamp as an Attribute name. I'm successfully storing the following as each report is generated with each new report being added under its own column:
{ PartitionKey:customerId,
SortKey:reportName_yyyymm,
'#millis_1#':{'report':doc_1},
'#millis_2#':{'report':doc_2},
. . .
'#millis_n#':{'report':doc_n}
}
My question is, given a millisecond-based date range, and the accompanying Partition and Sort keys, is it possible to query the set of Attributes that fall within that range or must I retrieve all columns for the matching keys and filter them at the client?
Welcome to the most powerful NoSQL database ;)
To kick off with the positive news, there is no way to query out specific attributes. You can project certain attributes in a query. But you would have to write your own logic to determine which attributes or columns should be included in the projected query. To get close to your solution you could use a map attribute inside an item with the milliseconds as a key. But there is another thing you have to be aware of when starting on this path.
There is a maximum total item size of 400KB for each item in DynamoDB, including key and attribute names.(Limits in DynamoDB Items) This means you can only store so many attributes in an item. This is especially true if you intend to put the actual report inside of the attribute. Which I would advise against, also because you will be burning up read capacity units every time you get one attribute out of the whole item. You would be better of putting this data in a separate table with the keys in the map. But truthfully in DynamoDB I would split this whole thing up, just add the milliseconds to the sort key and make every document its own item. That way you can directly query to these items and you can use the "between" where clause to select specific date-time ranges. Please let me you meant something else.

Firebase - Structuring Data For Efficient Indexing

I've read almost everywhere about structuring one's Firebase Database for efficient querying, but I am still a little confused between two alternatives that I have.
For example, let's say I want to get all of a user's "maxBenchPressSessions" from the past 7 days or so.
I'm stuck between picking between these two structures:
In the first array, I use the user's id as an attribute to index on whether true or false. In the second, I use userId as the attribute NAME whose value would be the user's id.
Is one faster than the other, or would they be indexed a relatively same manner? I kind of new to database design, so I want to make sure that I'm following correct practices.
PROGRESS
I have come up with a solution that will both flatten my database AND allow me to add a ListenerForSingleValueEvent using orderBy ONLY once, but only when I want to check if a user has a session saved for a specific day.
I can have each maxBenchPressSession object have a key in the format of userId_dateString. However, if I want to get all the user's sessions from the last 7 days, I don't know how to do it in one query.
Any ideas?
I recommend to watch the video. It is told about the structuring of the data very well.
References to the playlist on the firebase 3
Firebase 3.0: Data Modelling
Firebase 3.0: Node Client
As I understand the principle firebase to use it effectively. Should be as small as possible to query the data and it does not matter how many requests.
But you will approach such a request. We'll have to add another field to the database "negativeDate".
This field allows you to get the last seven entries. Here's a video -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMR_JPfL4qg&feature=youtu.be&t=4m36s
.limitToLast(7) - 7 entries
.orderByChild('negativeDate') - sort by date
Example of a request:
const ref = firebase.database().ref('maxBenchPressSession');
ref.orderByChild('negativeDate').limitToLast(7).on('value', function(snap){ })
Then add the user, and it puts all of its sessions.
const ref = firebase.database().ref('maxBenchPressSession/' + userId);
ref.orderByChild('negativeDate').limitToLast(7).on('value', function(snap){ })

Firebase better way of getting total number of records

From the Transactions doc, second paragraph:
The intention here is for the client to increment the total number of
chat messages sent (ignore for a moment that there are better ways of
implementing this).
What are some standard "better ways" of implementing this?
Specifically, I'm looking at trying to do things like retrieve the most recent 50 records. This requires that I start from the end of the list, so I need a way to determine what the last record is.
The options as I see them:
use a transaction to update a counter each time a record is added, use the counter value with setPriority() for ordering
forEach() the parent and read all records, do my own sorting/filtering at client
write server code to analyze Firebase tables and create indexed lists like "mostRecent Messages" and "totalNumberOfMessages"
Am I missing obvious choices?
To view the last 50 records in a list, simply call "limit()" as shown:
var data = new Firebase(...);
data.limit(50).on(...);
Firebase elements are ordering first by priority, and if priorities match (or none is set), lexigraphically by name. The push() command automatically creates elements that are ordered chronologically, so if you're using push(), then no additional work is needed to use limit().
To count the elements in a list, I would suggest adding a "value" callback and then iterating through the snapshot (or doing the transaction approach we mention). The note in the documentation actually refers to some upcoming features we haven't released yet which will allow you to count elements without loading them first.

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