How to access to Firebase Cloud Firestore Database using Python

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In my previous post “How to setup Google Firebase Cloud Firestore Database“, I introduced Google Firebase Cloud Firestore where you can create a NoSQL type database. In this post, I will share with you how you can access to your Firestore database.

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Python Package

You need the following package to work with Firebase Cloud Firestore.

  • firebase_admin

If you do not have firebase_admin Python package, you can install it by issuing the below command in your system or in the virtualenv. (See “How to use VirtualEnv in Python” post for more detail how to setup and use VirtualEnv.)

pip install firebase-admin

Firebase Project and Private Key

Assuming you have followed the “How to setup Google Firebase Cloud Firestore Database” and you have the project setup, as well as you have generated the private key, once you have the private key (.JSON file), remember the path to that file or put the file as same directory as where your Python file will be. Let’s jump straight into Python coding.

Access to Firebase from Python

Import firebase-admin

First thing you need to do is, import the firebase-admin in your Python code so you can start using the modules in this package. Import the below in your Python code.

import firebase_admin
from firebase_admin import credentials
from firebase_admin import firestore

Initialize your Firebase Credentials

Next is, you need to initialize and establish your Firebase credential. 

# Use a service account
cred = credentials.Certificate('serviceAccountKey.json')
firebase_admin.initialize_app(cred)

By now, you should be able to access to your Cloud Firestore database. Next is to point to the Collection.

Loading Collection and Document

db = firestore.client()

cars_ref = db.collection(u'cars')
docs = cars_ref.stream()

With the code above, it accessed to collection name called “cars“.

Next is to check what’s in the cars, get it and put in the Python list.

cars_list = []
for doc in docs:
    cars_list.append(doc.to_dict())
    # print(u'{} => {}'.format(doc.id, doc.to_dict()))

Output the List

Finally, print the cars_list to see what’s in the list.

print(cars_list)

This should return something like below: (assuming you have those data in the Cloud Firestore database)

[{'brand': 'honda', 'model': 'civic', 'type': 'sedan'}, {'brand': 'honda', 'model': 'crv', 'type': 'suv'}]

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Sample Code

Cloud Firestore Official Document Reference

https://firebase.google.com/docs/firestore/quickstart?authuser=0

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