[Feature request] Query toJson, fromJson

[marcusx2]

Operating System

macOS

Browser Version

Safari 16.5.2

Firebase SDK Version

10.4.0

Firebase SDK Product:

Firestore

Describe your project's tooling

index.html with source tag. Just javascript.

Describe the problem

It's a feature request. I'd like the ability to be able to serialize and deserialize a Query. There are classes on the Auth package that have a fromJson and toJson methods, for example. I'd like to be able to reconstruct a Query from a string.

I also created a discussion for alternative solutions in the meantime (if this ever gets implemented).

Steps and code to reproduce issue

Given that I have any query, for example

import { collection, query, where } from "firebase/firestore";
const citiesRef = collection(db, "cities");

// Create a query against the collection.
const q = query(citiesRef, where("state", "==", "CA"));

I'd like to be able to do something like

const serialized = JSON.stringify(q);
const q2 = Query.fromJson(JSON.parse(serialized));//query from json

[Alone-Y154]

Hi @marcusx2 , I would like to work on this, can you assign it to me

[marcusx2]

I don't think I can assign anything to anyone, I'm not a part of the team. I do appreciate it that you are interested in implementing this feature. Any thoughts from the firebase team?

[Alone-Y154]

Okay, Thanks for the Update @marcusx2

[milaGGL]

Hi @marcusx2, thank you for filling up this feature request.

Currently we do not provide serializing /deserializing of queries, as Query could be quite complex, especially if it involves filtering, sorting and limiting. Besides, functions like fromJson could bypass the type checking in some sense.

I wonder what would be the use case for the functions.

[marcusx2]

A use case is having to store queries on an external server, to retrieve and run them later, with a management system where the admin can create and edit queries, and save them to be used later.

Another use case is having to communicate with another environment that isn't javascript. For example, if I want to make a Unity plugin to run on WebGL builds, I need to pass the query to the Unity environment, and back to the javascript environment. To do that, I need to be able to serialize/deserialize a query from a string.

[milaGGL]

Hi @marcusx2, these are very valid use cases. I created a backlog ticket for this feature request to ensure we retain the context. Please note that we cannot provide an ETA at this time. If you have any more suggestions or questions, feel free to let us know.
Googlers please see b/305998085.

[marcusx2]

Is there any way I can help? I got this working