Firebase Realtime Database - Find and Update

Question

I am testing out the firebase's real-time database and I am having a real hard time. First I would like to know what is the best approach to finding a record and update it with other info. Let's say I have a user and with a post request, I want to change its name.

I tried:

var userRef = admin.database().ref('users');
var email = req.body.email;
var name = req.body.name;
userRef.equalTo(email).update({name: name});

Try to follow the official documentation but with no luck.

My database:

users
   -Lbq98URniAej2TkWBhG
      email: "[email protected]"
      name: "Pepe"
-Lbq9GC1A131De-iumI0
      email: "[email protected]"
      name: "Pipa"

Also, mind that I don't know the uid beforehand, so I have to look into the child data.

Answer 1

First I would like to know what is the best approach to finding a record and update it with other info.

I am not sure whether this is the best approach or not but for your situation I would have set up my database in this way

users
     -- unique user id - 1      
        -- name
        -- email
        -- posts
           -- unique post id
     -- unique user id - 2      
        -- name
        -- email
        -- posts
           -- unique post id
// and so on

Then I would use the user id to change name like this.

var database = admin.database();
var name = req.body.name;
var uid = req.body.uid;
var userRef = database.ref('users/' + uid);

userRef.update({name : name})
    .then(() => {
        console.log("Update Successfull")
    })
    .catch(error => {
        console.log(error);
    });

I am guessing your database organized in such way:

users
     -- pxTYaszxcsauniqueId1
        -- email    
        -- name
        -- posts
           -- unique post id
     -- abcdeFFFaKauniqueId2     
        -- email
        -- name
        -- posts
           -- unique post id
// and so on

In that case I would use the email to find the document, doing something like this:

// Get a reference to the database service
var database = admin.database();
var name = req.body.name;
var email = req.body.email;

var ref = database.ref("users").orderByChild("email").equalTo(email);

ref.once("value").then(function(snapshot) {
    snapshot.forEach(function(childSnapshot) {

      childSnapshot.ref.update({
        "name" : name
      }).then(function() {
        console.log("Success")
      });

      // Cancel enumeration
      return true;
  });
})

Again this is assuming the way you have organized the database. If you are organizing the db in a different way the above code will not work. If its different then please do add the way you have organized the db in the question that you have posted.