Firestore ODM Feedback

[kroikie]

We have started development of an ODM for Firestore to make storing data with Firestore easier.

Please give it a try and use this discussion to provide any feedback!

[CodingSoot]

The generator doesn't detect the toJson method generated by freezed.

part 'user.freezed.dart';
part 'user.g.dart';

@Collection<User>('/users/')
final usersRef = UserCollectionReference();

@freezed
class User with _$User {
  const factory User({required String name}) = _User;

  factory User.fromJson(Map<String, dynamic> json) => _$UserFromJson(json);
}

Error :
Used @Collection with the class User, but the class has no toJson method.

[rrousselGit]

Haha, I wasn't sure if it made sense to add support for my personal project in a Google project, but from the looks of it, I worried for nothing 😛

[FilledStacks]

Is this being worked on at the moment @rrousselGit ?

[datdefboi]

Freezed requires as String conversion on each field like Timestamp. The one solution - custom converters and a paramer like notjson:true on @freezed

[danielmahon]

+1 for adding freezed support, current use-case is the copyWith and == generation

[Ehesp]

Hi all. Freezed support is now planned, see: #9294

[CodingSoot]

I've played a bit with the package and it looks really promising !

Currently, nested objects (nested fields) don't seem to be supported. For example :

@Collection<User>('users')
final usersRef = UserCollectionReference();

@JsonSerializable()
class User {
  User({
    required this.name,
    required this.age,
    required this.email,
  });

  final FullName name;
  final int age;
  final String email;
}

@JsonSerializable()
class FullName {
  FullName({
    required this.firstName,
    required this.lastName,
  });

  final String firstName;
  final String lastName;

  factory FullName.fromJson(Map<String, dynamic> json) =>
      _$FullNameFromJson(json);

  Map<String, dynamic> toJson() => _$FullNameToJson(this);
}

The "name" class member is not included in the generated update, where, and orderBy methods.
Is there any planned support for nested objects ?

[DK070202]

Any update on this?

[Kiruel]

We still can't use nested class or it's fix ? Can't find anywhere the repo cloud_firebase_odm to see issues.

[Kiruel]

This URL is broken https://github.com/firebase/flutterfire/tree/master/packages/cloud_firestore_odm (from the doc https://firebase.flutter.dev/docs/firestore-odm/defining-models)

[usman092]

Is there any updates on this? I want to create an array nested in the main document. And use the array-contains query.
I haven't tried the generic whereFieldPath method, I have a feeling that this will work. However, an explicitly generated method would be preferable.

[jannuskool]

Any updates on this? Spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how to do nested Objects. Suggestion, so that other people don't spend time on finding info, maybe to add info that nested objects aren't supported. Also if there is visibility to the roadmap or planned features, that might also help. Loving the package anyways! Good job!

[dfdgsdfg]

Great! Really what I want to. Maybe future, any built_value support plan have?

[ciriousjoker]

Will this support documents as well?

We have a top level other/ collection that stores a couple of documents that don't have the same structure.

We can't use @Collection, we would need something like @document for single document references

[rrousselGit]

Note that it isn't necessary though.
You could use @Collection and achieve the same result:

class Model {...}

@Collection<Model>('other')
final document = ModelCollectionReference().doc('my-doc');

[ciriousjoker]

As a workaround sure, but creating multiple competing references depending on the one document you want to get seems pretty counterintuitive.

[AirborneEagle]

@rrousselGit in your example, the string my-doc is the path or id to the document.
is there a way to reference the path stored in a field of the parent doc?
ex: product has a field that references a company.

Could I do something like this:

class Product {...}

@Collection<Product>('products')
@Collection<Company>('companies')
final companyRef = ProductCollectionReference().doc().data['company']

or would we use the to-be-created @Document annotation ?

class Product {...}

@Collection<Product>('products')
@Document<Company>('companies', name: 'company')
final companyRef = ProductCollectionReference()

[rrousselGit]

@AirborneEagle I don't understand your examples. How would that look like in firestore?

[ciriousjoker]

@AirborneEagle This will work, yes. You just have to specify different prefixes in the Collection() annotation.

As it currently is, the provided workaround is good enough and a document annotation shouldn't be necessary since Firestore isn't supposed to be used like that anyway

[devbydc]

Great package! May I ask will this support pagination with the builder?

[rrousselGit]

Yes, it is planed. It will have a clone of the paginated flutterfire_ui components

[Purus]

IS there any beta version or a feature branch that has this? I would like to try on this.

[rrousselGit]

No, not yet.

[shaship2]

is everyone currently doing pagination manually? Wondering if there is a way to use something like FirestoreListView with odm ?

[motucraft]

Any plans for pagination to be supported?

[jfrnd]

I am facing an issue with the @collection annotation, when trying to perform the code generation.

The linter says:

"An annotation can't use type arguments.dart(annotation_with_type_arguments)"

and the code generation says:

This requires the 'generic-metadata' language feature to be enabled.

I am running on flutter version 2.8.0 (stable) and dart version 2.15.0 (stable).

Any idea how I can fix this issue / enable 'generic-metadata'?

Thanks!

[rrousselGit]

You need to change your Dart SDK version to:

environment:
  sdk: ">=2.14.0 <3.0.0"

[rrousselGit]

For reference, I've updated the installation docs to mention that step

[ciriousjoker]

Alternatively (if you have a half-migrated codebase), you can add a dart version override to the top of the file:

// @dart=2.15

Please include this in the doc

[AgDude]

I also am running into some trouble with the @collection annotation for a reference. When following the example for "reading documents" I get the error "The argument type 'MixDocumentReference' can't be assigned to the parameter type 'FirestoreListenable'." (my model is called Mix). What causes my app to return a FirestoreListenable, while the example returns the DocumentSnapshot?

p.s., This looks like a great addition to flutterfire. I am excited to see where it goes!

[rrousselGit]

Do you have some code that you could share to reproduce the issue?

[AgDude]

In copying my code over I realized my mistake. I ended up with FirestoreBuilder<MixDocumentReference> instead of FirestoreBuilder<MixDocumentSnapshot>. Got it working now. Thanks for the response.

I did find I had to implement a custom fromJson for a DateTime field. Adding that to the automagic types would be a nice addition.

[ciriousjoker]

@AgDude You can do that by using a custom Jsonserializable annotation where you pass the converter directly. Then you just replace your JsonSerializable annotations with the custom one and you're good to go

[Lyokone]

Hi :)
I was wondering if there were a simple way to include the document id in the model. I would expect a field documentId or id to be generated as the same time ?
Do you have any suggestion how to get it easily ? Thanks :)

[rrousselGit]

There is currently no such thing.

I've raised an issue #7613

[WillBeebe]

This got me pretty far @Lyokone in the existing non-ODM package.

import 'package:cloud_firestore/cloud_firestore.dart';
import 'package:my_package/models/event.dart';

static FirebaseFirestore firestore = FirebaseFirestore.instance;
  static CollectionReference<Event> eventCollection =
      FirebaseFirestore.instance.collection('events').withConverter<Event>(
            fromFirestore: (snapshots, _) {
              var data = snapshots.data()!;
              return Event.fromJson(data).copyWith(id: snapshots.id);
            },
            toFirestore: (object, _) => object.toJson(),
          );

[damalo93]

Nice work with this package but I have an issue.
When I generate code with flutter pub run build_runner build --delete-conflicting-outputs
The where and update clauses of the DocumentReference or Timestamp fields doesn't generate
There are any way for query by DocumentReference or Timestamp at the moment?

[rrousselGit]

I'll need a bit of work – particularly google/json_serializable.dart#1072

I'll make a PR when I can

[fpbouchard]

There seems to be progress on this (the json_serializable PR is merged), but until this makes it here, here is the converter I've written (if this can help). Let me know if I missed something.

// Firestore does not actually returns Json for Timestamps, they are already converted, hence this 1:1 converter
class TimestampConverter implements JsonConverter<Timestamp, Timestamp> {
  const TimestampConverter();

  @override
  Timestamp fromJson(Timestamp json) => json;

  @override
  Timestamp toJson(Timestamp object) => object;
}

[fpbouchard]

I reckon this might be incoming following Timestamp support, but the orderBy functions are not generated for Timestamp fields.

[OlegNovosad]

I am curious about database migration support. Let's say I have a model:

class User {
  final String email;
  final String name;
}

and I'd like to add a field nickname:

class User {
  final String email;
  final String name;
  final String nickname;
}

will this plugin be able to help with that case? I know it's a bit of pain to do migration in Firestore.

[rrousselGit]

It won't help, no.
But you could specify a default value on nickname, avoiding the need for a migration altogether

[OlegNovosad]

@rrousselGit thanks. I'll prefer nullable type then. I was considering using Firestore ODM for the migration case, but will integrate it after its stable. Thanks for all your work! 🔥

[samma89]

Thank you all for getting this amazing plugin done. I have a question regarding DocumentReferences(single or as a list) in a document.
How do you map a list of document references in a document to a model?

I am using Flutter 2.5.3 and environment is sdk: ">=2.14.0 <3.0.0"
below is my implementation;

import 'package:cloud_firestore/cloud_firestore.dart';
import 'package:json_annotation/json_annotation.dart';
import 'package:cloud_firestore_odm/cloud_firestore_odm.dart';

part 'user.model.g.dart';

@JsonSerializable()
class UserModel {
  UserModel({
    required this.name,
    this.services,
    this.children,
  });

  String name;
  List<String>? services; //  or List<DocumentReference> or List<ServiceModel>.  ???
  List<String>? children; // or List<DocumentReference> or List<ChildModel>.  ???
}

@Collection<UserModel>('Users')
final usersRef = UserModelCollectionReference();

Thanks in advance!

[damalo93]

In my case I done this by adding the JsonKey to the field and using this Json converters

@JsonKey(
    toJson: firestoreListDocRefToJson,
    fromJson: firestoreListDocRefFromJson,
  )
  List<DocumentReference> members;

DocumentReference firestoreDocRefFromJson(dynamic value) {
  if (value is String) {
    return FirebaseFirestore.instance.doc(value);
  } else {
    return FirebaseFirestore.instance.doc(value.path);
  }
}

dynamic firestoreListDocRefToJson(dynamic value) => value;

List<DocumentReference> firestoreListDocRefFromJson(List value) {
  final List<DocumentReference> list = [];
  for (var element in value) {
    list.add(firestoreDocRefFromJson(element));
  }
  return list;
}

[samma89]

Thank you very much! I'll try this out.

[samma89]

This worked!! thanks @damalo93

[starteNCS]

You can also easily extend this method to use other generated document references instead of the generic DocumentReference.
I chose to store just the id, but if you want you can also just do value.refernece instead.

UserDocumentReference docRefFromJson(String id) => usersRef.doc(id);
String docRefToJson(UserDocumentReference value) => value.id;

(With documentReference, I did not test this)

UserDocumentReference docRefFromJson(DocumentReference doc) => usersRef.doc(doc.id);
DocumentReference docRefToJson(UserDocumentReference value) => value.reference;

[leoafarias]

When using an enum field it seems that the autogenerated .update method does not have properties that use an enum. For example I had a User class with a Role property.

[IvanArantes]

Im sorry if this is dumb. But is it a good practice to import 'part' files in others? or this is meant to be used like: user.g.part only in user class?
Because I was trying to export the UserCollectionReference

[ciriousjoker]

Shouldnt be an issue. Besides if you couldn't export stuff from Multi-Part files, then what's the point of creating them?

[austinn]

How can I reference the document id on the model?

[AgDude]

That isn't currently available, but it is discussed in #7613 . My current workaround is that I attach the snapshot to the model immediately after it is fetched.

For example I have a model called Mix

return FirestoreBuilder<MixDocumentSnapshot>(
      ref: mixManager.doc(widget.mixId),
      builder: (context, AsyncSnapshot<MixDocumentSnapshot> snapshot, Widget? child) {
        if (snapshot.hasError) return Text('Something went wrong!');
        if (!snapshot.hasData) return Text('Loading mix...');

        MixDocumentSnapshot mixSnapshot = snapshot.requireData;
        if (!mixSnapshot.exists) {
          return Text('Not Found!');
        }

        Mix mix = mixSnapshot.data!;
        mix.snapshot = mixSnapshot;
        return SomeWidget(mix)
)

The other advantage of this pattern is that it gives me access to subcollections easily from within the mix model using snapshot.reference.mySubCollection

[austinn]

Thanks @AgDude! I was also doing it this way, but was still getting an error. I had to ignore the late id and make it not required in the constructor of my model.

@JsonKey(ignore: true)
late String uid;

[cedvdb]

I suggest removing the need for collections to be defined in the same file as jsonserializable entities. Field map is not necessarily generated and some people might see those things as separate concerns.

[rrousselGit]

FieldMap is a requirement though

[cedvdb]

I assume it's an optimisation requirement, but it makes little sense if the ODM generator works with manual serialization.

Example: If you have a package with models where you defined json serialization manually, and make another package for collections, the ODM generator works just fine.

Now if you decide to make the domain models package serialization to be generated with json_serializable. The result is the same as far as the model package is concerned, although that serialization has been generated it shouldn't be a concern.

[rrousselGit]

it makes little sense if the ODM generator works with manual serialization

It doesn't.

fieldMap is necessary for when the name of a value inside a Dart class vs inside the DB are different. Like having firstName locally vs user_name on remote.

Without fieldMap, updating/querying those fields wouldn't work.

[cedvdb]

It doesn't.

Maybe we are talking about different things because it compiles for me. With this manually written in the class and no dependency on json_serializable:

class Something {

Map<String, dynamic> toJson() => ...
factory fromJson() => ...  

I don't know the internal of ODM and how it uses field map but unless it was some hiccups on my part I believe that works.

Note: something is in package a and somethingCollection in package b. If package a uses json_serializable to generate the same code, it stops working.

Note 2: I've only checked compilation, not runtime.

[rrousselGit]

This isn't about a compilation error but a runtime error.

It's string based. It's effectively as if you were to pass the wrong field name when not using the ODM

[juanleondev]

Hi! Are there any plans to support enums? 👀

[esperaking81]

Hello everyone.
I have FirestoreBuilder used in a widget and suddenly after updating, I get this error with the ref parameter.
The argument type 'DocumentRefence<User>' can't be assigned to the parameter type FirestoreListenable<UserDocumentSnapshot>
I am following what's exactly on the documentation.

[gmarizy]

You should create a separate issue as this is not a related to API feedback.

[rrousselGit]

The ODM doesn't implement the FIrestore "DocumentReference" API. It generates custom types instead.

But the custom types can be converter back using their .reference property. You likely want to pass that in

[Mayb3Nots]

Hi @rrousselGit I am using Isar and odm for the same class and they both have the class Id and Collection which means I have to use prefixed import. However the generated code wont work because of that. I found rrousselGit/freezed#628 and it seems like it wont be fixed in a long time so is it safe to say that odm will share the same fate as freezed in term of this issue?

[rrousselGit]

Yes

[OlegNovosad]

Hey all. I plan to switch using Firestore ODM to optimize some of the data retrieval for subcollections. Is the data from subcollections with firestore odm lazy? Or they are queried as soon as the paren object is queried?

[rrousselGit]

They need to be queries separately. Subcollections are just a neat way to access them, but otherwise not different from plain Firestore

[laeo]

I got Undefined name '_$$_FriendPerFieldToJson'. from generated code friend.g.dart, but i saw a variable named _$$FriendImplFieldMap, is there something i missed? Just occurred after i upgraded to dev.70 and freezed 2.4.5.

[gmarizy]

See #11728, you will find there a workaround.

[mkidv]

Hey, Freezed now annotate with JsonSerializable _$ClassNameImpl and so JsonSerializable generate now _$$ClassNameImplWhatever.

A fix could be a little change of _generatedJsonTypePrefix from collection_data.dart

For :

static String _generatedJsonTypePrefix({
    required bool hasFreezed,
    required String? redirectedFreezedClass,
    required String collectionTargetElementPublicType,
  }) {
    if (hasFreezed) {
      return '${redirectedFreezedClass.replaceFirstMapped('_', (match) => '_\$\$')}';
    } else {
      return '$collectionTargetElementPublicType';
    }
  }

Hope this help 😉

[rrousselGit]

A fix is in progress

[jarrodcolburn]

Wanted to reference this Datastore issue in the gcloud package repo https://github.com/dart-lang/gcloud/issues/163#issuecomment-1839995203 . They seem to be trying to solve the same issue of creating object mappings, although that package is taking a different approach as it's on the server and uses dart:mirrors (with its own limitations, can't dart compile).

Ultimately, I'm confused why these steps to deal with reflection workarounds are necessary. I see dart packages like fake_reflection where the author has gone through the trouble to reverse engineer how to get the Dart class/function bodies as strings from a running program. Then hopefully if there is no parsing errors, the user can get back the names. If the info is there in the program, why isn't there just a way to query it directly? Then Firestore wouldn't need an extra step, and Datastore wouldn't need a mirror.

[gmarizy]

ODM support enum as well as List and Set of enum, which is nice. But this support doesn't extend to FieldValue.arrayUnion and FieldValue.arrayRemove since FieldValue com straight from cloud_firestore package which doesn't handle enum types. Hence we need to remember to add .name to enum values when using FieldValue: reference.update(myFieldFieldValue.arrayUnion([MyEnum.value1.name]));.

I just wanted to report this disparity, from what I understand from code it would be quit a work to come up with a FieldValue ODM equivalent that support enum.

[liranzairi]

It's not clear from the documentation whether a subcollection class has to be defined in the same file as the parent collection class. For example, if I have in one file:

@Collection<Person>('people')
@freezed
class Person with _$Person {
  @JsonSerializable()
  const factory Person({
    String? name,
  }) = _Person;

  factory Person.fromJson(Map<String, dynamic> json) => _$PersonFromJson(json);
}

And in another file:

@Collection<Book>('people/*/books')
@freezed
class Book with _$Book {
  @JsonSerializable()
  const factory Book({
    int? pages,
  }) = _Book;

  factory Book.fromJson(Map<String, dynamic> json) => _$BookFromJson(json);
}

Then I get the error Defined a subcollection with path "people/*/books" but no collection with path "people" found.
If I put them in the same file then it works.
Is it intentional? Is there no way to separate the two classes to different files? In my project I have a collection tree which goes deep and wide with many classes, I'd prefer very much to be able to separate.

Thanks.

[liranzairi]

Do you plan to support batch operations? It can be similar to the transaction API you already support, e.g:

final batch = FirebaseFirestore.instance.batch();
usersRef.doc('userId').batchUpdate(
  batch,
  name: 'New name',
  ageFieldValue: FieldValue.delete(),
);
await batch.commit();

[liranzairi]

I created a PR for this FirebaseExtended/firestoreodm-flutter#3

[dipakp2726]

i am getting
Undefined name 'notSetQueryParam'.
Try correcting the name to one that is defined, or defining the name.

looks like its not generating that or I am missing something

my environment

environment:
sdk: ">=3.0.0 <4.0.0"

dev_dependencies:
build_runner: ^2.4.8
cloud_firestore_odm_generator: ^1.0.0-dev.19
freezed: ^2.4.7
json_serializable: ^6.7.1
mocktail: ^1.0.0
test: ^1.19.2
very_good_analysis: ^5.1.0

dependencies:
cloud_firestore_odm: ^1.0.0-dev.19
freezed_annotation: ^2.4.1
json_annotation: ^4.8.1
cloud_firestore: ^4.15.3

[motucraft]

same? #12240

[motucraft]

I'm curious about the current status of cloud_firestore_odm. Is it still actively maintained?
I noticed it has been moved from the FlutterFire repository to a new location here: https://github.com/FirebaseExtended/firestoreodm-flutter

Has maintenance ceased following this transition?
It appears that the versioning of cloud_firestore_odm is not keeping up with cloud_firestore since the move. Is this discrepancy intentional, or perhaps an oversight? Any insights or updates on this matter would be greatly appreciated!

[rrousselGit]

It's maintained. There's just not much to do at the moment.

[motucraft]

Glad to hear that. However, it seems there are others who share my concerns.
FirebaseExtended/firestoreodm-flutter#7 (comment)

[liranzairi]

@rrousselGit I created a PR to support batch operations: FirebaseExtended/firestoreodm-flutter#3
I hope it'll be useful for the project

[rrousselGit]

Interesting! Sorry, I missed your notification.

[muhammedrashidm]

_$EntryModelFieldMap['name']

Undefined name '_$EntryModelFieldMap'

Why is this error in generated code

[rrousselGit]

You didn't fully follow the installation steps and did not enable all necessary json_serializable flags

[muhammedrashidm]

I followed it from https://firebase.flutter.dev/docs/firestore-odm/defining-models. here, what do you think i might have missed

[rrousselGit]

https://github.com/firebaseextended/firestoreodm-flutter?tab=readme-ov-file#5-enable-create_field_map-and-create_per_field_to_json-of-json_serializable

[jaredweinfurtner]

I am interested in the last tagged version: cloud_firestore_odm-v1.0.0-dev.86

Does that mean it is close(ish) to an RC or did you start with v1.0.0 during development and we're just essentially on v0.86.0?

[ciriousjoker]

Consider it v0.88.0, since v0.88.0 had a breaking change.

[shtse8]

Hi everyone,

I've been following this discussion for a while and noticed that the official Firestore ODM development has been relatively quiet lately. Like many of you, I've encountered various limitations and issues mentioned in this thread - from nested object support to pagination, enum handling, and the general maintenance concerns.

After experiencing these pain points in my own projects, I decided to take a different approach and built a new Firestore ODM from the ground up, specifically designed to address many of the issues discussed here.

Key improvements include:

Complete nested object support - Works seamlessly with complex data structures
Revolutionary pagination - Smart Builder system that eliminates cursor inconsistency bugs
Full enum support - Including arrays and FieldValue operations
Streaming aggregations - Real-time count/sum/average subscriptions (unique feature)
Three update strategies - patch, modify, and incrementalModify for different use cases
Model reusability - Same model works across collections and subcollections
Lightning-fast code generation - Highly optimized using callables and Dart extensions
Complete type safety - No Map<String, dynamic> anywhere
The ODM supports freezed, json_serializable, and fast_immutable_collections out of the box, with automatic document ID handling and server timestamp support.

I've been using it in production and it's been incredibly stable. The documentation is comprehensive with detailed guides and examples.

If anyone is interested in trying it out, you can find it here: https://github.com/sylphxltd/firestore_odm

Full documentation: https://sylphxltd.github.io/firestore_odm/

I'd love to get feedback from the community, especially from those who've been waiting for solutions to the issues mentioned in this thread. No pressure at all - just sharing in case it helps anyone who's been stuck with similar challenges.

Thanks for all the great discussions and feedback in this thread - it really helped shape the design decisions! 🙏

[jannuskool]

Very excited about this! Status of original Firestore ODM has been a worrying point, although I’ve been able to work around the limitations without bigger problems. Will try out the package and potentially migrate my app to use it. Effort on the new package highly appreciated!