How to update an "array of objects" with Firestore?

Question

Firestore now has two functions that allow you to update an array without re-writing the entire thing.

Link: https://firebase.google.com/docs/firestore/manage-data/add-data, specifically https://firebase.google.com/docs/firestore/manage-data/add-data#update_elements_in_an_array

Update elements in an array

If your document contains an array field, you can use arrayUnion() and arrayRemove() to add and remove elements. arrayUnion() adds elements to an array but only elements not already present. arrayRemove() removes all instances of each given element.

Edit 08/13/2018: There is now support for native array operations in Cloud Firestore. See Doug's answer below.

---

There is currently no way to update a single array element (or add/remove a single element) in Cloud Firestore.

This code here:

firebase.firestore()
.collection('proprietary')
.doc(docID)
.set(
  { sharedWith: [{ who: "[email protected]", when: new Date() }] },
  { merge: true }
)

This says to set the document at proprietary/docID such that sharedWith = [{ who: "[email protected]", when: new Date() } but to not affect any existing document properties. It's very similar to the update() call you provided however the set() call with create the document if it does not exist while the update() call will fail.

So you have two options to achieve what you want.

Option 1 - Set the whole array

Call set() with the entire contents of the array, which will require reading the current data from the DB first. If you're concerned about concurrent updates you can do all of this in a transaction.

Option 2 - Use a subcollection

You could make sharedWith a subcollection of the main document. Then adding a single item would look like this:

firebase.firestore()
  .collection('proprietary')
  .doc(docID)
  .collection('sharedWith')
  .add({ who: "[email protected]", when: new Date() })

Of course this comes with new limitations. You would not be able to query documents based on who they are shared with, nor would you be able to get the doc and all of the sharedWith data in a single operation.

Here is the latest example from the Firestore documentation:

firebase.firestore.FieldValue.ArrayUnion

var washingtonRef = db.collection("cities").doc("DC");

// Atomically add a new region to the "regions" array field.
washingtonRef.update({
    regions: firebase.firestore.FieldValue.arrayUnion("greater_virginia")
});

// Atomically remove a region from the "regions" array field.
washingtonRef.update({
    regions: firebase.firestore.FieldValue.arrayRemove("east_coast")
});

You can use a transaction (https://firebase.google.com/docs/firestore/manage-data/transactions) to get the array, push onto it and then update the document:

    const booking = { some: "data" };
    const userRef = this.db.collection("users").doc(userId);

    this.db.runTransaction(transaction => {
        // This code may get re-run multiple times if there are conflicts.
        return transaction.get(userRef).then(doc => {
            if (!doc.data().bookings) {
                transaction.set({
                    bookings: [booking]
                });
            } else {
                const bookings = doc.data().bookings;
                bookings.push(booking);
                transaction.update(userRef, { bookings: bookings });
            }
        });
    }).then(function () {
        console.log("Transaction successfully committed!");
    }).catch(function (error) {
        console.log("Transaction failed: ", error);
    });

Sorry Late to party but Firestore solved it way back in aug 2018 so If you still looking for that here it is all issues solved with regards to arrays.

https://firebase.googleblog.com/2018/08/better-arrays-in-cloud-firestore.htmlOfficial blog post

array-contains, arrayRemove, arrayUnion for checking, removing and updating arrays. Hope it helps.

To build on Sam Stern's answer, there is also a 3rd option which made things easier for me and that is using what Google call a Map, which is essentially a dictionary.

I think a dictionary is far better for the use case you're describing. I usually use arrays for stuff that isn't really updated too much, so they are more or less static. But for stuff that gets written a lot, specifically values that need to be updated for fields that are linked to something else in the database, dictionaries prove to be much easier to maintain and work with.

So for your specific case, the DB structure would look like this:

proprietary: "John Doe"
sharedWith:{
  whoEmail1: {when: timestamp},
  whoEmail2: {when: timestamp}
}

This will allow you to do the following:

var whoEmail = '[email protected]';

var sharedObject = {};
sharedObject['sharedWith.' + whoEmail + '.when'] = new Date();
sharedObject['merge'] = true;

firebase.firestore()
.collection('proprietary')
.doc(docID)
.update(sharedObject);

The reason for defining the object as a variable is that using 'sharedWith.' + whoEmail + '.when' directly in the set method will result in an error, at least when using it in a Node.js cloud function.

#Edit (add explanation :) ) say you have an array you want to update your existing firestore document field with. You can use set(yourData, {merge: true} ) passing setOptions(second param in set function) with {merge: true} is must in order to merge the changes instead of overwriting. here is what the official documentation says about it

An options object that configures the behavior of set() calls in DocumentReference, WriteBatch, and Transaction. These calls can be configured to perform granular merges instead of overwriting the target documents in their entirety by providing a SetOptions with merge: true.

you can use this

const yourNewArray = [{who: "[email protected]", when:timestamp}
{who: "[email protected]", when:timestamp}]    


collectionRef.doc(docId).set(
  {
    proprietary: "jhon",
    sharedWith: firebase.firestore.FieldValue.arrayUnion(...yourNewArray),
  },
  { merge: true },
);

hope this helps :)