basic firebase URL structure?

Question

I am building a very simple cron job backup system for a friend's firebase app; I have PHP code, using firebase-php that can communicate with the firebase and the API docs state that adding the'?format=export" parameter will retrieve a .json file. Cool, so far.

My question is this: What path (after the firebase URL) is required? The API doc appears to state that it should be /.json but it returns a 404 /json/ works on the simulator, but also returns a 404 in testing

(note: looking for a single text file, similar to the "Export json" data dashboard, if possible)

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

The path defined the portion of the Firebase data tree that is being loaded. That means that you can load /any/possible/string and it will return a value, though that value is likely to be null unless you've written data to that path. Also note that without a defined extension (i.e. .json) you'll be attempting to load Firebase's in-browser graphical debugger.

In short, if you're using the REST API, you'll always want to end your paths in .json, but nothing else is required, i.e. https://<your-firebase>.firebaseio.com/.json is perfectly valid, and would download your entire Firebase. The format=export parameter ensures that any Firebase priority values are preserved in your JSON output, under the key .priority at any node, where they would normally be excluded.