Unqiue usernames in firebase with no work arounds - reactjs

I've looked at other answers but I'm still confused. Basically I have a firebase auth system and am trying to enforce unique usernames.
So far, I have 2 collections, a users collection and a username collection. Inside the users collection the documents contain user info. Inside the usernames collection each document id is the username and inside the documents are the userId.
To prevent duplicate usernames on user signup I was thinking to make a query to usernames collection and check if the username exists, from there either display an error to the user or continue with sign up.
code:
// Check if user exists
const usernamesRef = collection(db, 'usernames');
const usernameExists = query(usernamesRef, where('usernames', '==', username));
if(usernameExists) {
// handle error
} else {
createUserWithEmailAndPassword(auth, email, password)
//
}
My question is that is there any way to circumvent this, or is there a better way to do this. I've never done something like this before so I'm looking for input / suggestions. Thanks.

see if you need this cloud function
https://bigcodenerd.org/enforce-cloud-firestore-unique-field-values/

Related

Firestore function to listen for updates

I am a beginner in React native and firestore, and using these to build a kind of social media app, and I have a weird problem(I think I structured the db the wrong way). I want to have a feed, with all posts, no following-based, no nothing. The first time I structured my posts in db like this: users(collection)->user(doc)->thisUserPosts(collection inside doc) - but I couldn't find a way to fetch through all the thisUserPosts from all user(doc) and display them properly.
So I re-structured the db like this:
2 main collection, posts and users. Completely different. In users collection, only docs of users and their data(name, age, etc). In the other, their posts(name, media, desc, AND userId - where userId == the person who created it. userId field from posts collection docs should exist in users collection).
This second approach works just fine. In feed, I only fetch posts. But the problem arrises when I try to open the post(need to have this feature). I need to be able to display on react-navigation header the name of the user, yet I only have details of the post and only userId, which is to no good use.
So I came up with a solution : add a userName field in the posts collection doc, next to userId and simply display that. Now here's the catch: I need to figure a way(in firestore I think) to listen to updates from users collection docs, in case a user updates his name/username(I don't want to showcase the old name). And I don't know if that's possible inside firestore or how. Or is it better to find a different db structure?
TLDR: Need a function in firestore to listen to updates from other collection OR restructuring the db.
If you are fetching posts of a single user then you can just set a listener for his document.
Make sure that document has no sensitive information that must not be shared with others and is limited to the owner only.
If you are fetching posts from multiple users then you can use in operator:
db.collection("users").where("userID", "in", ["user_id1", "user_id2"])
.onSnapshot((snapshot) => {
console.log(snapshot.docs.map(user => user.data()))
});
If I assume you will be updating the new name in all the user's posts then you can set the listener on the posts document itself but that won't be nice in case all 30 posts fetched are from same user. That'll end up costing 30 reads just to update the same name.
Edit:
A simple example of reading a user's posts and listening updates on the user name:
const userID = "my_user_id"
// fetching user's 30 posts
const postsRef = firebase.firebase().collection("posts").where("userID", "==", userID).limit(30)
const postsSnapshot = await postsRef.get()
const postsData = postsSnapshot.docs.map(post => post.data())
// Array of posts data objects
// listening to change in user's name
firebase.firestore().collection("users").doc("user_id")
.onSnapshot((doc) => {
console.log("data: ", doc.data());
const newUsername = doc.data().username
const updatedPostsData = postsData.map(post => {
return ({...post, username: newUsername})
})
});

Laravel 8 Fortify User UUID Login Problem

I am currently setting up a new project using Laravel 8. Out of the box, Laravel is configured to use auto-incrementing ID's for the user's ID. In the past I have overrode this by doing the following.
Updating the ID column in the user table creation migration to
$table->uuid('id');
$table->primary('id');
Adding the following trait
trait UsesUUID
{
protected static function bootUsesUUID()
{
static::creating(function ($model) {
$model->{$model->getKeyName()} = (string) Str::orderedUuid();
});
}
}
Adding the following to the user model file
use UsesUUID;
public $incrementing = false;
protected $primaryKey = 'id';
protected $keyType = 'uuid';
On this new project, I did the same as above. This seems to break the login functionality. When the email and password are entered and submitted, the form clears as though the page has been refreshed. Thing to note is there are no typical validation error messages returned as would be expected if the email and/or password is wrong.
To check that the right account is actually being found and the password is being checked properly, I added the following code to the FortifyServiceProvider boot method. The log file confirms that the user is found and the user object dump is correct too.
Fortify::authenticateUsing(function(Request $request) {
\Log::debug('running login flow...');
$user = User::where('email', $request->email)->first();
if ($user && Hash::check($request->password, $user->password)) {
\Log::debug('user found');
\Log::debug($user);
return $user;
}
\Log::debug('user not found');
return false;
});
Undoing the above changes to the user model fixes the login problem. However, it introduces a new problem that is the login will be successful but it wont be the right account that is logged in. For example, there are 3 accounts, I enter the credentials for the second or third account, but no matter what, the system will always login using the first account.
Anyone have any suggestions or ideas as to what I may be doing wrong, or if anyone has come across the same/similar issue and how you went about resolving it?
Thanks.
After digging around some more, I have found the solution.
Laravel 8 now stores sessions inside the sessions table in the database. The sessions table has got a user_id column that is a foreign key to the id column in the users table.
Looking at the migration file for the sessions table, I found that I had forgot to change the following the problem.
From
$table->foreignId('user_id')->nullable()->index();
To
$table->foreignUuid('user_id')->nullable()->index();
This is because Laravel 8 by default uses auto incrementing ID for user ID. Since I had modified the ID column to the users table to UUID, I had forgotten to update the reference in the sessions table too.

How to get username from client id after the user has left the guild

I have statistics. I am downloading from the User Id database and I am replacing the ID with its name, but if the user has left the server, there is an error because there is no such user.
I have bot.users.get(id) but when a user leaves the server, an error pops up.
Can I get the username with the ID differently if the user is not on the server?
Sorry for being late, like literally. You can perform a request to get a user from Discord by a UserResolvable with Client#fetchUser(<UserResolvable>);.
In practice, the code should look like this;
const Discord = require("discord.js");
const Client = new Discord.Client();
Client.login("YoUr.nIcE.toKe.n");
Client.on("ready", function () { // Should do that when the client is ready.
const User = Client.fetchUser("123456789012345678");
console.log(User); // Some user object.
});
Hope I helped you nonetheless.
~Q
Since client.users stores only cached users, you won't be able to retrieve their username in a reliable way from there.
DISCLAIMER: This method is really inefficient, but discord.js hasn't been made for this kind of work. If you want to make it easier, just write Unknown user (client_id)
If you're not able to get the username from a user list you could try to use messages: use channel.fetchMessages() on every channel of your guild until you find a message in which message.author.id == your_id, when you find it you can get the username with message.author.username
There's also another solution: a self-bot. Keep in mind that this one is not supported by Discord itself, and could result in a permanent ban for the account you're using.
With that said, if you use a self-bot you can use the TextChannel.search() method to quickly find a message with your author id and then grab the username from the author.

How to create custom URLs for new users using Firebase?

I have a React/Redux application that creates and saves new users under Firebase as /users/<uid>
However, I also want to have each user have a custom URL for their profile pages, like domain.com/users/john-david or domain.com/users/john-david-1343 (if the original /users/john-david is already taken.)
What's the best way to do this?
My problem is that I was going to store users under /users/<firstname-lastname-hash> in Firebase, but that seems like a bad idea to store them under anything besides uid (is this true?).
But also, if I don't do that, then how do I maintain /users/<uid> in Firebase, while creating new usernames that account for duplicates, and searching if the user exists when visiting domain.com/users/john-david-123
Here is some sample code of where the new user gets saved to Firebase
export function saveUser (data, user) {
let username = data.username
return ref.child(`users/${user.uid}/info`)
.set({
email: user.email,
firstname: data.firstName,
lastname: data.lastName,
admin: false,
// for /users/<username>
username: username,
uid: user.uid
})
.then(() => user)
}
In general we say you should store data in Firebase how you intend to view it, and there's no reason in particular that you must use the UID as your primary key when storing users. What you might want to is:
Store user data in /users/${username} as you mentioned, including a uid field.
When a user signs up, generate the firstname-lastname slug and store in /uids/${uid} = username.
This way you have a simple way to map from UID to user and vice-versa. The downside here is that once you bake a username into your data structure, you should probably never let them change their username.
Alternatively, you could reverse my suggestion and store /usernames/${username} = uid and /users/${uid}. This makes it easier to rename usernames, but requires that you do an extra lookup to go from username to data.

Adding Custom Attributes to Firebase Auth

I have hunted through Firebase's docs and can't seem to find a way to add custom attributes to FIRAuth. I am migrating an app from Parse-Server and I know that I could set a user's username, email, and objectId. No I see that I have the option for email, displayName, and photoURL. I want to be able to add custom attributes like the user's name. For example, I can use:
let user = FIRAuth.auth()?.currentUser
if let user = user {
let changeRequest = user.profileChangeRequest()
changeRequest.displayName = "Jane Q. User"
changeRequest.photoURL =
NSURL(string: "https://example.com/jane-q-user/profile.jpg")
changeRequest.setValue("Test1Name", forKey: "usersName")
changeRequest.commitChangesWithCompletion { error in
if error != nil {
print("\(error!.code): \(error!.localizedDescription)")
} else {
print("User's Display Name: \(user.displayName!)")
print("User's Name: \(user.valueForKey("name"))")
}
}
}
When I run the code, I get an error that "usersName" is not key value compliant. Is this not the right code to use. I can't seem to find another way.
You can't add custom attributes to Firebase Auth. Default attributes have been made available to facilitate access to user information, especially when using a provider (such as Facebook).
If you need to store more information about a user, use the Firebase realtime database. I recommend having a "Users" parent, that will hold all the User children. Also, have a userId key or an email key in order to identify the users and associate them with their respective accounts.
Hope this helps.
While in most cases you cannot add custom information to a user, there are cases where you can.
If you are creating or modifying users using the Admin SDK, you may create custom claims. These custom claims can be used within your client by accessing attributes of the claims object.
Swift code from the Firebase documentation:
user.getIDTokenResult(completion: { (result, error) in
guard let admin = result?.claims?["admin"] as? NSNumber else {
// Show regular user UI.
showRegularUI()
return
}
if admin.boolValue {
// Show admin UI.
showAdminUI()
} else {
// Show regular user UI.
showRegularUI()
}
})
Node.js code for adding the claim:
// Set admin privilege on the user corresponding to uid.
admin.auth().setCustomUserClaims(uid, {admin: true}).then(() => {
// The new custom claims will propagate to the user's ID token the
// next time a new one is issued.
});

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