Firebase + AngularFire -> States?

Question

I'd like to know how I would deal with object states in a FireBase environment.

What do I mean by states? Well, let's say you have an app with which you organize order lists. Each list consists of a bunch of orders, so it can be considered a hierarchical data structure. Furthermore each list has a state which might be one of the following:

• deferred
• open
• closed
• sent
• acknowledged
• ware completely received
• ware partially received
• something else

On the visual (HTML) side the lists shall be distinguished by their state. Each state shall be presented to the client in its own, say, div-element, listing all the related orders beneath.

So the question is, how do I deal with this state in FireBase (or any other document based database)?

structure

Do I...

... (option 1) use a state-field for each orderlist and filter on the clientside by using if or something similar:

• orderlist1.state = open
  • order1
  • order2
• orderlist2.state = open
  • order1
• orderlist3.state = closed
• orderlist4.state = deferred

... (option 2) use the hierarchy of FireBase to classify the orderlists like so:

• open
  • orderlist1
    • order1
    • order2
  • orderlist2
    • order1
• closed
  • orderlist3
• deferred
  • orderlist4

... (option 3) take a totally different approach?

So, what's the royal road here?

retrieval, processing & visual output of option 2

Since for option 1 the answer to this question is apparantly pretty straight forward (if state == ...) I continue with option 2: how do I retrieve the data in option 2? Do I use a Firebase-object for each state, like so:

var closedRef = new Firebase("https://xxx.firebaseio.com/closed");
var openRef = new Firebase("https://xxx.firebaseio.com/open");
var deferredRef = new Firebase("https://xxx.firebaseio.com/deferred");
var somethingRef = new Firebase("https://xxx.firebaseio.com/something");

Or what's considered the best approach to deal with that sort of data/structure?

Answer 1

I think my this plnkr can help you for this.

Here, click on edit/add and just check the country(order in your case) - State(state in your case) dependent dropdown may be the same as you want.just one single thing you may need to add is filter it.

They both are different tables in db.

You can also get it from git.

Answer 2

There is no universal answer to this question. The "best approach" is going to depend on the particulars of your use case, which you haven't provided here. Specifically, how you will be reading and manipulating the data.

Data architecture in NoSQL is all about working hard on writes to make reads easy. It's all about how you plan to use the data. (It's also enough material for a chapter in a book.)

The advantage to "option 1" is that you can easily iterate all the entire list. Great if your list is measured in hundreds. This is a great approach if you want to fetch the list and manipulate it on the fly on the client side.

The advantage to "option 2" is that you can easily grab a subset of the list. Great if your list is measured in thousands and you will typically be fetching open issues only rather than closed ones. This is great for archiving/new/old lists like yours.

There are other options as well.

Sorted Data using Priorities

Perhaps the most universal approach is to use ordered data. This allows you to query a subset of your records using something like:

new Firebase(URL).startAt('open').endAt('open').limit(10);

This is sufficient in most cases where you have only one criteria, or when you can create a unique identifier from multiple criteria (e.g. 'open:marketing') without difficulty. Examples are scoreboards, state lists like yours, data ordered by timestamps.

Using an index

You can also create custom subsets of your data by creating an index of keys and using that to fetch the others.

This is most useful when there is no identifiable characteristic of your subsets. For example, if I pick them from a list and store my favorites.