Fieldvalue for Firestore

When using the Firestore SDK the firebase.firestore.FieldValue can be very useful for incrementing fields, altering arrays, using the server time, or deleting fields.

Examples will be in JavaScript but are pretty similar for Android and iOS.

increment ​

No need for transactions to safely increment a value. No need to worry about race conditions if two users are bumping a value.

const db = firebase.firestore()
const ref = db.collection('posts').doc(id)
ref.update({ likes: firebase.firestore.FieldValue.increment(1) })

arrayUnion & arrayRemove ​

If two family members are adding/removing items to a shopping list document at the same time where the items are stored in an array. That could lead to one overwriting the array without having the item from the other person. Transactions are verbose, use arrayUnion and arrayRemove.

const db = firebase.firestore()
const ref = db.collection('shopping').doc(id)

ref.update({ items: firebase.firestore.FieldValue.arrayUnion('apple', 'milk') })

ref.update({ items: firebase.firestore.FieldValue.arrayRemove('bread') })

serverTimestamp ​

To avoid different timezones or delays it could be useful to use the server timestamp. Since Firestore is used from the client-side and we don't deal with server code, Firebase gives us the fieldvalue serverTimestamp.

const db = firebase.firestore()
const post = {
  text: 'hello world',
  created: firebase.firestore.FieldValue.serverTimestamp(),
}
db.collection('posts').add(post)

delete ​

If you want to delete a field without changing any other fields use the FieldValue.delete()

const db = firebase.firestore()
const ref = db.collection('posts').doc(id)
ref.update({ likes: firebase.firestore.FieldValue.delete() })