How to add subcollection to a document in Firebase Cloud Firestore

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The documentation does not have any examples on how to add a subcollection to a document. I know how to add document to a
collection and how to add data to a document, but how do I add a collection (subcollection) to a document?
40
Shouldn't there be some method like this:

dbRef.document("example").addCollection("subCollection")

13

java android ios firebase google-cloud-firestore

Share Improve this question Follow edited Jan 31 '19 at 10:31 asked Nov 27 '17 at 15:26
Alex Mamo rgoncalv
93.2k 13 107 143 4,745 3 27 53

6 Answers Active Oldest Votes

Edit 13 Jan 2021:

42 According to the updated documentation regarding array membership, now it is possible to filter data based on array values using
whereArrayContains() method. A simple example would be:

CollectionReference citiesRef = db.collection("cities");

citiesRef.whereArrayContains("regions", "west_coast");

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This query returns every city document where the regions field is an array that contains west_coast. If the array has multiple
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instances of the value you query on, the document is included in the results only once.
Assuming we have a chat application that has a database structure that looks similar to this:

To write a subCollection in a document, please use the following code:

DocumentReference messageRef = db

.collection("rooms").document("roomA")

.collection("messages").document("message1");

If you want to create messages collection and call addDocument() 1000 times will be expensive for sure, but this is how Firestore works.
You can switch to Firebase Realtime Database if you want, where the number of writes doesn't matter. But regarding Supported Data
Types in Firestore, in fact, you can use an array because is supported. In Firebase Realtime database you could also use an array , but
this is which is an anti-pattern. One of the many reasons Firebase recommends against using arrays is that it makes the security rules
impossible to write. Join Stack Overflow to learn, share knowledge, and build your career.

Cloud Firestore can store arrays, it does not support querying array members or updating single array elements. However, you can still
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model this kind of data by leveraging the other capabilities of the Cloud Firestore. Here is the documentation where is very well
 explained.

You also cannot create a subcollection with 1000 messages and add all of them to the database and at the same time to consider a
single record. It will be considered one write operation for every message. In total 1000 operations. The picture above does not show
how to retrieve data, it shows a database structure in which you have something like this:

collection -> document -> subCollection -> document

Share Improve this answer Follow edited Jan 12 at 22:27 answered Nov 27 '17 at 18:19
Alex Mamo
93.2k 13 107 143

1 How do you fancy for instance, adding 1000 messages dynamically (with their ids being auto generated) inside the messages collections and then
adding this collection to the roomA in one query? I am pretty sure creating the messages collection and calling addDocument() 1000 times will be
expensive (in all meanings). What I am looking for is a way to create these documents and assigning them to the subcollection locally and then
adding the subcollection to the document. I am currently setting an array of dictionaries (or hashmaps) and setting the array as a data type to the
document...
–  rgoncalv
Nov 27 '17 at 19:36

but the array of dictionaries doesn't sound like the best solution given the power of Firestore. In fact, your pic above show how to retrieve from a sub
collection (as in the docs) but how to add a subcollection to a document is not explained in the docs at all :(
–  rgoncalv
Nov 27 '17 at 19:37

The fact that you cannot write an entire array (collection) is kind of crazy. It's such a basic need and yet I am having to iterate through everything to
add them into collections individually... makes me wonder, what was the advantage of firestore in the first place?
– Felipe
Jan 6 '18 at 21:39

Please see my updated answer and also take a look a this post for a better understanding. Do you think that my answer helped you?
– Alex Mamo
Jan
7 '18 at 8:08

Anyone please help to add field("name") with collection ("messages") in document(roomA) using web query. I am not getting how to add fields +
collection in document
– Sunny G
Apr 8 at 7:24

Here's a variation where the subcollection is storing ID values at the collection level, rather than within a document where the
subcollection is a field there with additional data.
9 Join Stack Overflow to learn, share knowledge, and build your career.
This is useful for connecting a 1-to-Many ID mapping w/out having to drill through an additional document:
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 function fireAddStudentToClassroom(studentUserId, classroomId) {

var db = firebase.firestore();

var studentsClassroomRef =

db.collection('student_class').doc(classroomId)

.collection('students');

studentsClassroomRef

.doc(studentUserId)

.set({})

.then(function () {

console.log('Document Added ');

})

.catch(function (error) {

console.error('Error adding document: ', error);

});

Thanks to @Alex's answer

This answer a bit off from the original question here, where it explicitly asks for adding a collection to a document. However,
after searching for a solution for this scenario and not finding any mention in docs or on SO, this post seems like a reasonable
place to share the findings

Share Improve this answer Follow edited Oct 15 '19 at 1:00 answered Apr 3 '18 at 22:38
Gene Bo
9,014 6 71 120

Here's my code:

5 firebase.firestore().collection($scope.longLanguage +
'Words').doc($scope.word).set(wordData)

.then(function() {

console.log("Collection added to Firestore!");

var promises = [];

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promises.push(firebase.firestore().collection($scope.longLanguage +
'Words').doc($scope.word).collection('AudioSources').doc($scope.accentDialect).set(accentD
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promises.push(firebase.firestore().collection($scope.longLanguage +
 'Words').doc($scope.word).collection('FunFacts').doc($scope.longLanguage).set(funFactObje

promises.push(firebase.firestore().collection($scope.longLanguage +
'Words').doc($scope.word).collection('Translations').doc($scope.translationLongLanguage).

Promise.all(promises).then(function() {

console.log("All subcollections were added!");

})

.catch(function(error){

console.log("Error adding subcollections to Firestore: " + error);

});

})

.catch(function(error){

console.log("Error adding document to Firestore: " + error);

});

This makes a collection EnglishWords , which has a document of . The document of has three subcollections: AudioSources
(recordings of the word in American and British accents), FunFacts , and Translations . The subcollection Translations has one
document: Spanish . The Spanish document has three key-value pairs, telling you that 'de' is the Spanish translation of 'of'.

The first line of the code creates the collection EnglishWords . We wait for the promise to resolve with .then , and then we create the
three subcollections. Promise.all tells us when all three subcollections are set.

IMHO, I use arrays in Firestore when the entire array is uploaded and downloaded together, i.e., I don't need to access individual
elements. For example, an array of the letters of the word 'of' would be ['o', 'f'] . The user can ask, "How do I spell 'of'?" The user
isn't going to ask, "What's the second letter in 'of'?"

I use collections when I need to access individual elements, a.k.a. documents. With the older Firebase Realtime Database, I had to
download arrays and then iterate through the arrays with forEach to get the element I wanted. This was a lot of code, and with a deep
data structure and/or large arrays I was downloading tons of data that I didn't need, and slowing my app running forEach loops on
large arrays. Firestore puts the iterators in the database, on their end, so that I can request a single element and it sends me just that
element, saving me bandwidth and making my app run faster. This might not matter for a web app, if your computer has a broadband
connection, but for mobile apps with poor data connections and slow devices this is important.

Here are two pictures of my Firestore:

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 Join Stack Overflow to learn, share knowledge, and build your career.

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 Share Improve this answer Follow answered Mar 1 '18 at 18:25
Thomas David Kehoe
7,312 7 44 73

From the docs:

2 You do not need to "create" or "delete" collections. After you create the first document in a collection, the collection exists. If
you delete all of the documents in a collection, it no longer exists.

Share Improve this answer Follow answered Oct 30 '20 at 11:30

Christian_M
21 1

Here i faced the same issue and solve with the answere of @Thomas David Kehoe

2 db.collection("First collection Name").doc("Id of the document").collection("Nested

collection Name").add({

//your data

}).then((data) => {

console.log(data.id);

console.log("Document has added")

}).catch((err) => {

console.log(err)

})

Share Improve this answer Follow answered Dec 22 '20 at 18:01

Join Stack Overflow to learn, share knowledge, and build your career. Mubasher Ali
27 9
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 too late for an answer but here is what worked for me,

1
mFirebaseDatabaseReference?.collection("conversations")?.add(Conversation("User1"))

?.addOnSuccessListener { documentReference ->

Log.d(TAG, "DocumentSnapshot written with ID: " + documentReference.id)

mFirebaseDatabaseReference?.collection("conversations")?.document(documentReference.id)?.

}?.addOnFailureListener { e ->

Log.w(TAG, "Error adding document", e)

add success listener for adding document and use firebase generated ID for a path.
Use this ID for the complete path for a new
collection you want to add.
I.E. -
dbReference.collection('yourCollectionName').document(firebaseGeneratedID).collection('yourCollectionName').add(yourDocumentPO
JO/Object)

Share Improve this answer Follow answered Nov 18 '18 at 17:19

Mihir Patel
426 6 16

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