Updating User Profile Using React and Firebase

In a previous post, I shared the steps I took to wire a React project to connect to Firebase services and retrieve data from the database.

Fetching from Firestore Realtime Database

Clark Johnson ・ Jul 12 '20 ・ 3 min read

#javascript #react

My latest task involved creating a user with the Firebase Auth service and persisting profile data for the user.

The user was created through a React component containing a form for signup. When submitted, the form executes the function loginUser().

  const loginUser = () => {
    props.firebase
      .doCreateUserWithEmailAndPassword(inputs)
      .then((authUser) => {
        console.log("authUser: ", authUser);
      })
      .catch((error) => {
        console.error(error.code, error.message);
      });
  };

The fields from the form are passed to the Firebase handler function.

In my project, the connections to the Firebase services and helper methods are encapsulated in a class. In my project, the file is /src/Firebase/firebase.js.

class Firebase {
  constructor() {
    app.initializeApp(firebaseConfig);
    this.auth = app.auth();
    this.db = app.firestore();
  }

...

}

The form fields are passed to the doCreateUserWithEmail() method. This method relies on the createUserWithEmailAndPassword() and updateProfile() methods supplied by the Firebase library.

Firebase Auth Class maintains a basic set of fields for the display_name, email, phone_number, and uid (unique identifier). All other fields must be stored separately in a database like Firestore. In my case, they are stored in a Firestore collection called users.

The action takes place asynchronously through Promise chains. First, the authorized user is created. Then a default display_name is derived from the email address and persisted in the Auth record. Finally, a users document is created with the uid as the key, and the fields from inputs as data. In this example, I'm saving the first and last names.

  doCreateUserWithEmailAndPassword = (inputs) => {
    const { email, password, firstName, lastName } = inputs;

    return this.auth
      .createUserWithEmailAndPassword(email, password)
      .then((user) => {
        const displayName = user.user.email.split("@")[0];
        return this.auth.currentUser.updateProfile({ displayName });
      })
      .then(() => {
        console.log(this.auth.currentUser);
        return this.db
          .collection("users")
          .doc(this.auth.currentUser.uid)
          .set({ firstName, lastName });
      })
      .catch((error) => console.error("Error: ", error));
  };

The profile document for a single user can easily be retrieved from the users collection by referencing the uid.

  doGetUserProfile = (uid, callback) => {
      return this.db
          .collection("users")
          .doc(uid)
          .get()
          .then(callback);
  };

Similarly, the profile document for an existing user can easily be updated.

 doProfileUpdate = (profile) => {
    return this.db
      .collection("users")
      .doc(this.auth.currentUser.uid)
      .set(profile)
      .catch((error) => console.error("Error: ", error));
  };

So far, my foray into Firebase has been quite rewarding. It's easy to see that after a few implementations the development time for my applications will begin to diminish.

Happy coding!

Cover photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash