Is it possible to count how many items a collection has using the new Firebase database, Cloud Firestore?
If so, how do I do that?
I created a universal function using all these ideas to handle all counter situations (except queries).
The only exception would be when doing so many writes a second, it slows you down. An example would be likes on a trending post. It is overkill on a blog post, for example, and will cost you more. I suggest creating a separate function in that case using shards: https://firebase.google.com/docs/firestore/solutions/counters
// trigger collections
exports.myFunction = functions.firestore
.document('{colId}/{docId}')
.onWrite(async (change: any, context: any) => {
return runCounter(change, context);
});
// trigger sub-collections
exports.mySubFunction = functions.firestore
.document('{colId}/{docId}/{subColId}/{subDocId}')
.onWrite(async (change: any, context: any) => {
return runCounter(change, context);
});
// add change the count
const runCounter = async function (change: any, context: any) {
const col = context.params.colId;
const eventsDoc = '_events';
const countersDoc = '_counters';
// ignore helper collections
if (col.startsWith('_')) {
return null;
}
// simplify event types
const createDoc = change.after.exists && !change.before.exists;
const updateDoc = change.before.exists && change.after.exists;
if (updateDoc) {
return null;
}
// check for sub collection
const isSubCol = context.params.subDocId;
const parentDoc = `${countersDoc}/${context.params.colId}`;
const countDoc = isSubCol
? `${parentDoc}/${context.params.docId}/${context.params.subColId}`
: `${parentDoc}`;
// collection references
const countRef = db.doc(countDoc);
const countSnap = await countRef.get();
// increment size if doc exists
if (countSnap.exists) {
// createDoc or deleteDoc
const n = createDoc ? 1 : -1;
const i = admin.firestore.FieldValue.increment(n);
// create event for accurate increment
const eventRef = db.doc(`${eventsDoc}/${context.eventId}`);
return db.runTransaction(async (t: any): Promise<any> => {
const eventSnap = await t.get(eventRef);
// do nothing if event exists
if (eventSnap.exists) {
return null;
}
// add event and update size
await t.update(countRef, { count: i });
return t.set(eventRef, {
completed: admin.firestore.FieldValue.serverTimestamp()
});
}).catch((e: any) => {
console.log(e);
});
// otherwise count all docs in the collection and add size
} else {
const colRef = db.collection(change.after.ref.parent.path);
return db.runTransaction(async (t: any): Promise<any> => {
// update size
const colSnap = await t.get(colRef);
return t.set(countRef, { count: colSnap.size });
}).catch((e: any) => {
console.log(e);
});;
}
}
This handles events, increments, and transactions. The beauty in this, is that if you are not sure about the accuracy of a document (probably while still in beta), you can delete the counter to have it automatically add them up on the next trigger. Yes, this costs, so don't delete it otherwise.
Same kind of thing to get the count:
const collectionPath = 'buildings/138faicnjasjoa89/buildingContacts';
const colSnap = await db.doc('_counters/' + collectionPath).get();
const count = colSnap.get('count');
Also, you may want to create a cron job (scheduled function) to remove old events to save money on database storage. You need at least a blaze plan, and there may be some more configuration. You could run it every sunday at 11pm, for example. https://firebase.google.com/docs/functions/schedule-functions
This is untested, but should work with a few tweaks:
exports.scheduledFunctionCrontab = functions.pubsub.schedule('5 11 * * *')
.timeZone('America/New_York')
.onRun(async (context) => {
// get yesterday
const yesterday = new Date();
yesterday.setDate(yesterday.getDate() - 1);
const eventFilter = db.collection('_events').where('completed', '<=', yesterday);
const eventFilterSnap = await eventFilter.get();
eventFilterSnap.forEach(async (doc: any) => {
await doc.ref.delete();
});
return null;
});
And last, don't forget to protect the collections in firestore.rules:
match /_counters/{document} {
allow read;
allow write: if false;
}
match /_events/{document} {
allow read, write: if false;
}
Update: Queries
Adding to my other answer if you want to automate query counts as well, you can use this modified code in your cloud function:
if (col === 'posts') {
// counter reference - user doc ref
const userRef = after ? after.userDoc : before.userDoc;
// query reference
const postsQuery = db.collection('posts').where('userDoc', "==", userRef);
// add the count - postsCount on userDoc
await addCount(change, context, postsQuery, userRef, 'postsCount');
}
return delEvents();
Which will automatically update the postsCount in the userDocument. You could easily add other one to many counts this way. This just gives you ideas of how you can automate things. I also gave you another way to delete the events. You have to read each date to delete it, so it won't really save you to delete them later, just makes the function slower.
/**
* Adds a counter to a doc
* @param change - change ref
* @param context - context ref
* @param queryRef - the query ref to count
* @param countRef - the counter document ref
* @param countName - the name of the counter on the counter document
*/
const addCount = async function (change: any, context: any,
queryRef: any, countRef: any, countName: string) {
// events collection
const eventsDoc = '_events';
// simplify event type
const createDoc = change.after.exists && !change.before.exists;
// doc references
const countSnap = await countRef.get();
// increment size if field exists
if (countSnap.get(countName)) {
// createDoc or deleteDoc
const n = createDoc ? 1 : -1;
const i = admin.firestore.FieldValue.increment(n);
// create event for accurate increment
const eventRef = db.doc(`${eventsDoc}/${context.eventId}`);
return db.runTransaction(async (t: any): Promise<any> => {
const eventSnap = await t.get(eventRef);
// do nothing if event exists
if (eventSnap.exists) {
return null;
}
// add event and update size
await t.set(countRef, { [countName]: i }, { merge: true });
return t.set(eventRef, {
completed: admin.firestore.FieldValue.serverTimestamp()
});
}).catch((e: any) => {
console.log(e);
});
// otherwise count all docs in the collection and add size
} else {
return db.runTransaction(async (t: any): Promise<any> => {
// update size
const colSnap = await t.get(queryRef);
return t.set(countRef, { [countName]: colSnap.size }, { merge: true });
}).catch((e: any) => {
console.log(e);
});;
}
}
/**
* Deletes events over a day old
*/
const delEvents = async function () {
// get yesterday
const yesterday = new Date();
yesterday.setDate(yesterday.getDate() - 1);
const eventFilter = db.collection('_events').where('completed', '<=', yesterday);
const eventFilterSnap = await eventFilter.get();
eventFilterSnap.forEach(async (doc: any) => {
await doc.ref.delete();
});
return null;
}
I should also warn you that universal functions will run on every onWrite call period. It may be cheaper to only run the function on onCreate and on onDelete instances of your specific collections. Like the noSQL database we are using, repeated code and data can save you money.
UPDATE 11/20
I created an npm package for easy access: https://fireblog.io/blog/post/firestore-counters
I have try a lot with different approaches. And finally, I improve one of the methods. First you need to create a separate collection and save there all events. Second you need to create a new lambda to be triggered by time. This lambda will Count events in event collection and clear event documents. Code details in article. https://medium.com/@ihor.malaniuk/how-to-count-documents-in-google-cloud-firestore-b0e65863aeca
offset
& limit
:public int collectionCount(String collection) {
Integer page = 0;
List<QueryDocumentSnapshot> snaps = new ArrayList<>();
findDocsByPage(collection, page, snaps);
return snaps.size();
}
public void findDocsByPage(String collection, Integer page,
List<QueryDocumentSnapshot> snaps) {
try {
Integer limit = 26000;
FieldPath[] selectedFields = new FieldPath[] { FieldPath.of("id") };
List<QueryDocumentSnapshot> snapshotPage;
snapshotPage = fireStore()
.collection(collection)
.select(selectedFields)
.offset(page * limit)
.limit(limit)
.get().get().getDocuments();
if (snapshotPage.size() > 0) {
snaps.addAll(snapshotPage);
page++;
findDocsByPage(collection, page, snaps);
}
} catch (InterruptedException | ExecutionException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
findDocsPage
it's a recursive method to find all pages of collection
selectedFields
for otimize query and get only id field instead full body of document
limit
max size of each query page
page
define inicial page for pagination
From the tests I did it worked well for collections with up to approximately 120k records!
var variable=0
variable=variable+querySnapshot.count
then if you are to use it on a String variable then
let stringVariable= String(variable)
Increment a counter using admin.firestore.FieldValue.increment:
exports.onInstanceCreate = functions.firestore.document('projects/{projectId}/instances/{instanceId}')
.onCreate((snap, context) =>
db.collection('projects').doc(context.params.projectId).update({
instanceCount: admin.firestore.FieldValue.increment(1),
})
);
exports.onInstanceDelete = functions.firestore.document('projects/{projectId}/instances/{instanceId}')
.onDelete((snap, context) =>
db.collection('projects').doc(context.params.projectId).update({
instanceCount: admin.firestore.FieldValue.increment(-1),
})
);
In this example we increment an instanceCount
field in the project each time a document is added to the instances
sub collection. If the field doesn't exist yet it will be created and incremented to 1.
The incrementation is transactional internally but you should use a distributed counter if you need to increment more frequently than every 1 second.
It's often preferable to implement onCreate
and onDelete
rather than onWrite
as you will call onWrite
for updates which means you are spending more money on unnecessary function invocations (if you update the docs in your collection).
There is no direct option available. You cant't do db.collection("CollectionName").count()
.
Below are the two ways by which you can find the count of number of documents within a collection.
db.collection("CollectionName").get().subscribe(doc=>{
console.log(doc.size)
})
By using above code your document reads will be equal to the size of documents within a collection and that is the reason why one must avoid using above solution.
db.collection("CollectionName").doc("counts")get().subscribe(doc=>{
console.log(doc.count)
})
Above we created a document with name counts to store all the count information.You can update the count document in the following way:-
w.r.t price (Document Read = 1) and fast data retrieval the above solution is good.