Firebase - don't get message with read rules - ios

Question

I'm trying to set up a chat room in IOS with firebase. Things work fine when I test in the simulator of the firebase console but do not work in IOS app.
The structure I use is like this
root/members/room-id/auth.uid/userdata
root/messages/room_id/messages/message
I create a new room in IOS with
- (void)initRoom
{
NSMutableDictionary *mdata = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init];
FIRUser *user = [FIRAuth auth].currentUser;
mdata[#"uid"] = user.uid;
// get the key for the new room
roomKey = [[_rootRef child:#"messages"] childByAutoId].key;
if (roomKey != nil) {
// add auth.uid to member/roomkey
NSString *memberID = [[[_rootRef child:#"members"] child: roomKey ] child: user.uid ].key;
[[[[_rootRef child:#"members"] child: roomKey ] child: memberID ] setValue:mdata];
[self addMemberToRoom];
}
}
and add the other member for that room (using hard coded uid, for now):
-(void) addMemberToRoom{
NSString *memberID = [[[_rootRef child:#"members"] child: roomKey ] child: #"QLfRoGpoCjWpzira7fljBj8g3EJ3"].key;
NSMutableDictionary *mdata = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init];
mdata[#"uid"] = #"QLfRoGpoCjWpzira7fljBj8g3EJ3";
if (memberID !=nil) {
[[[[_rootRef child:#"members"] child: roomKey ] child: memberID ] setValue:mdata];
}
// start listener
[self observeMessages];
}
The console show this for members:
and this for messages:
and start the listener like this:
-(void)observeMessages
{
_msgHandle = [[[_rootRef child:#"messages"] child: roomKey] observeEventType:FIRDataEventTypeChildAdded withBlock:^(FIRDataSnapshot *snapshot) {
NSDictionary<NSString *, NSString *> *message = snapshot.value;
NSString *name = message[#"senderId"];
NSString *text = message[#"message"];
[self addMessagewithId:name andText:text];
// animates the receiving of a new message on the view
[self finishReceivingMessage];
}];
}
This is all working well to add a message to the database and see it in the app when I set rules like this:
{
"rules": {
"members": {
".read": "auth !== null",
".write": "auth !== null",
},
"messages": {
".write":"auth !== null",
".read": "auth !== null",
"$room_id": {
}
}
}
}
Now, since I don't want everybody being able to read the messages I set the rule to:
{
"rules": {
"members": {
".read": "auth !== null",
".write": "auth !== null",
},
"messages": {
".write": "auth !== null",
"$room_id": {
".read": "root.child('members/'+$room_id+'/'+auth.uid).exists()",
}
}
}
}
When I do this, the listener in the IOS app will not receive any call. Checking for the room_id and user created from the app with the simulator in the firebase console the read is flagged OK.
My assumption was, that the listener was initialized before the new members where created but even delaying the initializing did not help.
Could you help me by pointing me to the right direction? Thanks a lot!

Answer 1

OK, I found a solution that works for now. The observer for the chatroom was created before the chatroom is available in the members list, thus the .read rule returns false.
My workaround is setting an observer to the members list that starts the observer for messages when it fires.
This is my code:
-(void) getLastRoom // invoked when new room is added to members node
{
FIRUser *user = [FIRAuth auth].currentUser;
NSString *uid = user.uid;
_msgHandle = [[[[_rootRef child:#"members"] child: roomKey] queryEqualToValue: uid] observeEventType:FIRDataEventTypeValue withBlock:^(FIRDataSnapshot *snapshot) {
NSString *chatRoom = snapshot.key; //-> returns the roomkey of the chatroom
if ([chatRoom isEqualToString:roomKey]){
[self observeMessages];
}
}];
}
Hope it might help somebody.