I have seen in many places that to access nested documents and collections the pattern is something like db.collection("users").doc("frank").collection("pets") etc.
This makes a lot of sense to me and is easy to understand. The trouble is, my (React) project is set up in the Web version 9 way. I’ve combed the docs over and over and can’t see anything that goes beyond referencing X doc in Y collection.
I need to reference Users > uid > someCollection
But in the Web Version 9 way I can only do: doc(db, "users", uid)
How do I go deeper?
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Answer
If you are trying to get:
- a CollectionReference, then use
collection():
const myCol = collection(db, "collection", "doc1", "sub-col1")
- a DocumentReference, then use
doc():
const myDoc = doc(db, "collection", "doc1", "sub-col1", "sub-doc1")
The concept remains same. The path to a document has even number of segments e.g. col/doc/sub-col/sub-doc while path to a collection has odd e.g. col/doc/sub-col.
Both the methods will throw an error if invalid number of parameters are passed.
In the name-spaced version (v8), it used to look like:
// DocumentReference
firebase.firestore().doc("col/doc/sub-col/sub-doc")
// CollectionReference
firebase.firestore().collection("col/doc/sub-col")
In essence, you keep adding path segments to the same doc() or collection() methods.
doc(firestore: Firestore, path: string, ...pathSegments: string[]): // You can also use spread operator with an array
An example with spread operator:
const myDocPath = "users/user1/posts/post1/comments/comment1"
const docRef = doc(db, ...myDocPath.split("/"))
Just make sure you don’t have any leading or trailing slash if using spread operator with split().