Firestore: How to get random documents in a collection

Question

It is crucial for my application to be able to select multiple documents at random from a collection in firebase.

Since there is no native function built in to Fireb

Answer 1

Just made this work in Angular 7 + RxJS, so sharing here with people who want an example.

I used @Dan McGrath 's answer, and I chose these options: Random Integer version + Rinse & Repeat for multiple numbers. I also used the stuff explained in this article: RxJS, where is the If-Else Operator? to make if/else statements on stream level (just if any of you need a primer on that).

Also note I used angularfire2 for easy Firebase integration in Angular.

Here is the code:

import { Component, OnInit } from '@angular/core';
import { Observable, merge, pipe } from 'rxjs';
import { map, switchMap, filter, take } from 'rxjs/operators';
import { AngularFirestore, QuerySnapshot } from '@angular/fire/firestore';

@Component({
  selector: 'pp-random',
  templateUrl: './random.component.html',
  styleUrls: ['./random.component.scss']
})
export class RandomComponent implements OnInit {

  constructor(
    public afs: AngularFirestore,
  ) { }

  ngOnInit() {
  }

  public buttonClicked(): void {
    this.getRandom().pipe(take(1)).subscribe();
  }

  public getRandom(): Observable<any[]> {
    const randomNumber = this.getRandomNumber();
    const request$ = this.afs.collection('your-collection', ref => ref.where('random', '>=', randomNumber).orderBy('random').limit(1)).get();
    const retryRequest$ = this.afs.collection('your-collection', ref => ref.where('random', '<=', randomNumber).orderBy('random', 'desc').limit(1)).get();

    const docMap = pipe(
      map((docs: QuerySnapshot<any>) => {
        return docs.docs.map(e => {
          return {
            id: e.id,
            ...e.data()
          } as any;
        });
      })
    );

    const random$ = request$.pipe(docMap).pipe(filter(x => x !== undefined && x[0] !== undefined));

    const retry$ = request$.pipe(docMap).pipe(
      filter(x => x === undefined || x[0] === undefined),
      switchMap(() => retryRequest$),
      docMap
    );

    return merge(random$, retry$);
  }

  public getRandomNumber(): number {
    const min = Math.ceil(Number.MIN_VALUE);
    const max = Math.ceil(Number.MAX_VALUE);
    return Math.floor(Math.random() * (max - min + 1)) + min;
  }
}

Answer 2

I have one way to get random a list document in Firebase Firestore, it really easy. When i upload data on Firestore i creat a field name "position" with random value from 1 to 1 milions. When i get data from Fire store i will set Order by field "Position" and update value for it, a lot of user load data and data always update and it's will be random value.