Swift 2.0 - Get user details from firebase - swift

Question

I'm new to Swift and Firebase, and would like to know how to get a users details from Firebase by the userId.
I have the Firebase 'uid' stored in NSUserDefauls.
I have a user Model class like the following;
import UIKit
import Firebase
class User: NSObject {
var id: String?
var username: String?
var email: String?
var yogaLevel : Enums.Difficulty?
init(id: String, username: String, email: String){
self.id = id
self.username = username
self.email = email
}
override init(){
super.init()
}
}
I have a dataservie class that makes the relevant calls to Firebase;
import UIKit
import Firebase
class DataService{
static let dataService = DataService()
private var _BASE_REF = Firebase(url: "\(BASE_URL)")
private var _USER_REF = Firebase(url: "\(BASE_URL)/users")
var BASE_REF: Firebase {
return _BASE_REF
}
var USER_REF: Firebase {
return _USER_REF
}
var CURRENT_USER_REF: Firebase {
let userID = NSUserDefaults.standardUserDefaults().valueForKey("uid") as! String
let currentUser = Firebase(url: "\(BASE_REF)").childByAppendingPath("users").childByAppendingPath(userID)
return currentUser!
}
func createNewAccount(uid: String, user: Dictionary<String, String>) {
// A new user is created:
USER_REF.childByAppendingPath(uid).setValue(user)
}
}
I also have a manager class, that I would like to contains methods that return the users details.
import UIKit
import Firebase
class UserManager: NSObject {
static var currentUser = User()
class func getCurrentUserDetails() -> User{
// Attach a closure to read the data at our posts reference
DataService.dataService.CURRENT_USER_REF.observeEventType(.Value, withBlock: { snapshot in
currentUser.username = String(snapshot.value.objectForKey("username"))
currentUser.email = String(snapshot.value.objectForKey("email"))
currentUser.id = String(NSUserDefaults.standardUserDefaults().valueForKey("uid"))
print(String(currentUser.username) + " " + String(currentUser.email))
}, withCancelBlock: { error in
print("UserManager class - getCurrentUserDetails error: " + String(error.description))
})
return currentUser
}
}
I'd like advise on how I will create a function in the manager class the returns a 'user' that is populated from Firebase using the 'uid' I have stored. Can someone please point me in the right direction.
Please comment if you require more information, or more code.

Answer 1

This is a pretty open ended question so my answer is in the form of direction.
The current logged in user uid can be returned directly from Firebase:
if self.myRootRef.authData != nil {
print(ref.authData.uid) // user is authenticated
} else {
// No user is signed in
}
To answer the question(s) assume a Firebase structure of
root
users
uid_0
name: "Leroy"
email: "l.jenkins#ubrs.com"
Assume a User class
class UserClass: NSObject {
var name: String?
var email: String?
var uid: String?
}
Then, to populate a User class, the following code could be used to call a function
self.populateUser("uid_0")
here's the function to populate a User class from Firebase and add it to a Users array. That array could then be used to populate a tableView for example.
func populateUser(uid: String) {
let thisUserRef = self.usersRef.childByAppendingPath(uid)
thisUserRef.observeSingleEventOfType(.Value, withBlock: { snapshot in
if snapshot.value is NSNull {
print("snapshot was null");
} else {
let thisUser = UserClass()
thisUser.name = snapshot.value.objectForKey("name") as? String
thisUser.email = snapshot.value.objectForKey("email") as? String
thisUser.uid = uid
self.Users.append(thisUser)
print("\(thisUser.name!)")
}
})
}
self.Users is a class variable array defined thusly
var Users = [UserClass]()
Note 1: If the variables in your DataService class are global in nature, you can just create a file in your swift project and add them to a structure
MyGlobalVars.swift
struct MyGlobals {
static var rootRef = "app.firebase.com"
static var usersRef = "app.firebase.com/users"
}
Those can be accessed anywhere with
print("Global variable:\(MyGlobals.usersRef)")
Note 2: As in your Users class, you could just pass the snapshot to the Users class with an init and let it populate itself as well.
thisUser.populateFromSnapshot(snapshot.value)