Why Firestore is Firebase's primary database - See It in Action

Why Firestore is Firebase's primary database

📖 Scenario: You are building a simple app that stores user profiles. You want to use Firebase's main database service to save and retrieve user data efficiently.

🎯 Goal: Learn how to set up Firestore as the primary database in Firebase and understand why it is preferred over other options.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a Firestore database instance

Configure Firestore with proper settings

Add a user profile document to Firestore

Retrieve and display user profile data

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Apps need a fast, scalable database to store user data and Firestore provides this with easy setup and real-time updates.

💼 Career

Understanding Firestore is essential for Firebase developers building modern web and mobile apps.

1

Create a Firestore database instance

Create a variable called db and set it to the Firestore database instance using firebase.firestore().

Firebase

# Create a variable called db and set it to firebase.firestore()
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use firebase.firestore() to get the Firestore database instance.

2

Configure Firestore with proper settings

Create a variable called settings and set it to an object with timestampsInSnapshots set to true. Then apply these settings to db using db.settings(settings).

Firebase

const db = firebase.firestore();
# Create a settings object with timestampsInSnapshots: true and apply it to db
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Firestore requires enabling timestamps in snapshots for better date handling.

3

Add a user profile document to Firestore

Use db.collection('users').doc('user1').set() to add a document with name set to 'Alice' and age set to 30.

Firebase

const db = firebase.firestore();
const settings = { timestampsInSnapshots: true };
db.settings(settings);
# Add a user document with name 'Alice' and age 30
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use collection and doc to specify where to store the user data.

4

Retrieve and display user profile data

Use db.collection('users').doc('user1').get() to retrieve the document, then access its data with doc.data().

Firebase

const db = firebase.firestore();
const settings = { timestampsInSnapshots: true };
db.settings(settings);
db.collection('users').doc('user1').set({ name: 'Alice', age: 30 });
# Retrieve user1 document and access its data
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use get() to fetch the document and data() to read its contents.