Data from GET is returned differently then how the data is stored for map values

user_2077212 0
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For example, here's how my data is stored:

enter image description here

When I do a GET for the data from this URL (using the REST API):

https://<redacted>.com/maps/a6c00d68a95a5043374c1017b982d8f0b3009179/data/003_teleportIns.json

The result looks like this:

[{"sequenceNumber":0,"x":8,"y":3},{"sequenceNumber":1,"x":3,"y":14},{"sequenceNumber":2,"x":11,"y":15}]

What I expected, was for the data to look like this instead:

{"0":{"sequenceNumber":0,"x":8,"y":3},"1":{"sequenceNumber":1,"x":3,"y":14},"2":{"sequenceNumber":2,"x":11,"y":15}}

Since I'm using kotlinx serialization to decode the data, the way that firebase returns the data results in errors when trying to decode.

Here's an example error:

Unexpected JSON token at offset 199: Expected start of the object '{', but had ':' instead
JSON input: .....":5,"y":7}],
"003_teleportIns":[{"sequenceNumber":0,"x":8,"y.....
kotlinx.serialization.json.internal.JsonDecodingException: Unexpected JSON token at offset 199: Expected start of the object '{', but had ':' instead
JSON input: .....":5,"y":7}],
"003_teleportIns":[{"sequenceNumber":0,"x":8,"y.....

So what gives? Why is firebase returning my data in an unexpected manor? If this is expected, please point me to the documentation.

firebase-realtime-database
1 Answers

If you have sequential numeric keys in the result, the Firebase REST API (and SDKs) returns those as an array. There is no way to change this behavior, so what I usually do is prefix those keys with a short non-numeric string to prevent the array coercion. So "key_0", "key_1", etc.

Also see Best Practices: Arrays in Firebase.

user_2091030
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