Firestore returning an empty array

Question

I have this function here in a separate file, where:

export const getListOfChannels = (id) => {
  const channels = []

  firestore.collection("channels").where("channelId", "==", id).get().then(querySnapshot => {
    querySnapshot.forEach(doc => {
      channels.push(doc.data().id)
    })
  })
  return channels
}

And in another file, I'm doing:

// This is returning an empty array
const returnFromFirebase = getListOfChannelsIdWithCommunityId(id)

It wasn't supposed to return an empty array, because if I do a console.log(doc.data().id) I can see the data.

Am I doing something wrong?

Doug Stevenson · Accepted Answer · 2020-07-08 04:02:10Z

Firebase APIs (and any API that returns a promise) are asynchronous and return immediately, before the query is complete. The callback you provide via then is invoked some time later, after the results are available. There is no guarantee how quickly this will happen. As such, it's not possible to make a function that returns the query results immediately.

For asynchronous calls, what you're supposed to do is make your wrapper function also return a promise, and make the caller use that promise to get the results:

export const getListOfChannels = (id) => {
  return firestore.collection("channels").where("channelId", "==", id).get();
}

getListOfChannelsIdWithCommunityId(id).then(querySnapshot => {
  querySnapshot.forEach(doc => {
    channels.push(doc.data().id)
  })
})

There are a lot of variations on how to do this, but there is no alternative to dealing with that promise asynchronously. I strongly suggest learning how promises work, as it is critical to writing effective JavaScript.

Guru Hadadi · Accepted Answer · 2020-07-08 04:01:24Z

1

getListOfChannels is having code that does async call and you are returning channels outside of then and therefore it will always be empty.

So, return the promise

export const getListOfChannels = (id) => {
  const channels = []

  return firestore.collection("channels").where("channelId", "==", id).get().then(querySnapshot => {
    querySnapshot.forEach(doc => {
      channels.push(doc.data().id)
    })
    return channels;
  })
}

And in Another file access it in then block

let returnFromFirebase = [];
getListOfChannelsIdWithCommunityId(id).then((res) => {
  returnFromFirebase = res;
});

answered Jul 8, 2020 at 4:01

Guru Hadadi

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