How to query multiple values for a given key in firebase

Question

I attempted to use an 'OR' || statement in the equalTo() method, but this does not seem to work. Do I have to make a separate call for each value or is there a way to make conditional queries in firebase?

export const startSetContent = () => {
  return (dispatch, getState) => {
    const ref = database.ref("content");
    return ref
      .orderByChild("category")
      .equalTo('one-act-play' || 'ten-min-play' || 'full-length-play')
      .once('value')
      .then(snapshot => {
        const content = [];
        snapshot.forEach(childSnapshot => {
          content.push({
            id: childSnapshot.key,
            ...childSnapshot.val()
          });
        });
        dispatch(setContent(content));
      });
  };
};

Firebase doesn't provide a way to use conditional queries. Have a look at [this answer](https://stackoverflow.com/a/29564075/5861618) for more details. — Rosário Pereira Fernandes, Jan 12 '18 at 23:55
You might also want to have a look at [Firestore](https://firebase.google.com/docs/firestore/) which provides better query features than the Realtime Database — Rosário Pereira Fernandes, Jan 13 '18 at 00:04
Is firestore stable enough to use in production? I saw It was still in beta so I am a little weary to dive in. — Jordan Hensley, Jan 13 '18 at 00:22
@RosárioPereiraFernandes Unfortunately [Firestore also doesn't support OR conditions](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46632042/how-to-perform-compound-queries-with-logical-or-in-cloud-firestore). — Frank van Puffelen, Jan 13 '18 at 03:27

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 12 '18 at 23:56

3

What you typed there was a logical OR that JavaScript the programming language interprets. The result of the expression:

'one-act-play' || 'ten-min-play' || 'full-length-play'

is going to be simply:

'one-act-play'

So, Firebase Realtime Database will not see what you're trying to tell it.

Firebase Realtime Database has no concept of a kind of query that has ORs in it. You will have to query each type of thing separately and merge them together in your code as needed.

answered Jan 12 '18 at 23:56

Doug Stevenson

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Firebase does not have the best query possibilities at the moment, so you have to keep this is mind. That's the reason we have switched to Mongo. – Michal Takáč Jan 12 '18 at 23:58

Himanshu · Answer 2 · 2018-01-15T09:07:02.233

There is no concept of doing that you are asking for. You can do a turn around in which you can get the values on basis of one filter one-act-play using equalTo and rest you can filter on user end like:

export const startSetContent = () => {
  return (dispatch, getState) => {
    const ref = database.ref("content");
    return ref
      .orderByChild("category")
      .equalTo('one-act-play')
      .once('value')
      .then(snapshot => {
        const content = [];
        Object.keys(snapshot.val()).map(k => {
        if(k == 'ten-min-play' || k == 'full-length-play'){
        snapshot.forEach(childSnapshot => {
          content.push({
            id: childSnapshot.key,
            ...childSnapshot.val()
          });
        });
        }
        dispatch(setContent(content));
      });
  };
};

Or you can use library made to fulfil this kind of requirement Querybase

How to query multiple values for a given key in firebase

2 Answers2