Book Image

Mastering Firebase for Android Development

By : Ashok Kumar S
Book Image

Mastering Firebase for Android Development

By: Ashok Kumar S

Overview of this book

Firebase offers a wide spectrum of tools and services to help you develop high-quality apps in a short period of time. It also allows you to build web and mobile apps quickly without managing the infrastructure.Mastering Firebase for Android Development takes you through the complete toolchain of Firebase,including the latest tools announced in Google IO 2018 such as Firebase ML-Kit, FireStore, and Firebase Predictions. The book begins by teaching you to configure your development environment with Firebase and set up a different structure for a Firebase real-time database. As you make your way through the chapters, you’ll establish the authentication feature in Android and explore email and phone authentication for managing the on-boarding of users. You’ll be taken through topics on Firebase crash reporting, Firebase functions, Firebase Cloud, Firebase Hosting, and Cloud Messaging for push notifications and explore other key areas in depth. In the concluding chapters, you will learn to use Firebase Test Lab to test your application before using Firebase Performance Monitoring to trace performance setbacks. By the end of the book, you will be well equipped with the Firebase ecosystem, which will help you find solutions to your common application development challenges.
Table of Contents (23 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Dedication
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
9
Application Usage Measuring and Notification, Firebase Analytics, and Cloud Messaging
11
Bringing Everyone on the Same Page, Firebase Invites, and Firebase App Indexing
12
Making a Monetary Impact and Firebase AdMob and AdWords
13
Flexible NoSQL and Cloud Firestore
14
Analytics Data, Clairvoyant, Firebase Predictions
Index

Chapter 4. Genie in the Cloud – Firebase Cloud Functions

"Oh what a tangled web we weave when we first practice to deceive"

— Sir Walter Scott

The mighty genie who fits inside a lamp, and does jaw-dropping magic when he pops out. Firebase Cloud Functions is the powerful wizard in the Firebase tools spectrum. Functions are essentially JavaScript code running on the Google Cloud Platform, but not inside a bottle. It handles an action when an event trigger occurs. Triggers occur within Firebase and Google platform by supported toolchain, for instance, when there is data written to a Realtime Database or Firestore, at the time of user creation inside Firebase Authentication, and so on.

Firebase Cloud Functions are nothing but server-side programs that respond to an event triggered by one or many of the Firebase services. Functions can be used to send an email when the user clicks on the forgot password link. Functions could fire a welcome email immediately after account creation. They can fire...