Android Studio: Query documents containing array node using a substring

Question

I am trying to search Documents in a Collection which contain a certain key.

Here is how I structured my Firestore database:

-- FirestoreRoot
   |-- Products        (Collection)
      |-- Departments  (Document)
         |-- Food      (Colletion)
            |-- {Id}   (Document)
               -- description : "this is my very first description"
               -- keywords :
                  -- 0 : this
                  -- 1 : is
                  -- 2 : my
                  -- 3 : very
                  -- 4 : first
                  -- 5 : description

In the example below, I was able to search by using a substring for the first word in the description. To this date, this method does not work for querying the following words. In the example below, typing the letters "thi" is enough to return documents.

        CollectionReference colecRef = FirebaseFirestore.getInstance()
                .collection("Products")
                .document("Departments")
                .collection("Food");

        Query query = colecRef;
        query.whereGreaterThanOrEqualTo("description", searchField.getText().toString().toLowerCase())
                .whereLessThan("description", searchField.getText().toString().toLowerCase()+'\uf8ff')
                .get().addOnSuccessListener(SearchActivity.this, new OnSuccessListener<QuerySnapshot>() {
            @Override
            public void onSuccess(QuerySnapshot queryDocumentSnapshots) {
                for (QueryDocumentSnapshot documentSnapshot : queryDocumentSnapshots) {
                    Log.i(TAG, "onSuccess: "+documentSnapshot);
                }
            }
        });

In my case, I need to search by using 1 or multiple keys, for example: first or first description. And by using the whole word or only a substring, for example: first or descr

I've tried to use whereArrayContains(), but I can't use it typing multiple keys or substring.

      query.whereArrayContains("keywords",searchField.getText().toString().toLowerCase())
                        .get().addOnSuccessListener(SearchActivity.this, new OnSuccessListener<QuerySnapshot>() {
                    @Override
                    public void onSuccess(QuerySnapshot queryDocumentSnapshots) {
                        for (QueryDocumentSnapshot documentSnapshot : queryDocumentSnapshots) {
                            Log.i(TAG, "onSuccess: "+documentSnapshot);
                        }
                    }
                })

I appreciate any help.

Please only use the android-studio tag for questions about the Android Studio IDE itself. For questions about Android programming in general, use the android tag. — Frank van Puffelen
– Frank van Puffelen, Commented Nov 20, 2019 at 23:14

Doug Stevenson · Accepted Answer · 2019-11-21 00:16:24Z

2

Firestore currently only offers two ways to query the contents of an array:

Array membership with whereArrayContains(). This will tell you if an element exists in an array. It must match exactly - no substrings.
array-contains-any memberhip with whereArrayContainsAny(). This will tell you if any of the given strings exist in the array. It must match exactly - no substrings.

As you can see, searching substrings in arrays isn't going to work at all. You might want to consider using another database in tandem with Firestore in order to satisfy these specific queries, as Firestore is not very well suited for them.

answered Nov 21, 2019 at 0:16

Doug Stevenson

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3 Comments

Aliton Oliveira Over a year ago

I am using firestore:20.0.0, but whereArrayContainsAny() is not available for Query and .collection("Food") .where("keywords", "array-contains-any", ["first", "description"]) is also not available. What am I missing?

Doug Stevenson Over a year ago

Upgrade to at least 21.3.0. firebase.google.com/support/release-notes/…

Aliton Oliveira Over a year ago

Is there something close to whereArrayContainsAny() or whereArrayContains() for Firebase Realtime Database?

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