Trouble creating firebase data structure - ios

Question

For my Firebase data structure, I want it to handle something like this:
A user can create a way of logging a thought. They can call it whatever they want. Mary Chen passes the parameter journal while Mr Owner wants to name it (pass parameter) log. Firebase saves these as their own tree naming it whatever parameter the user asked to name it.
Then another tree appears: whenLoggedIn + \(parameter). This tree saves a yyyy-mm-dd date to the corresponding post.
Example:
{
"uids": {
"D0Ez8edYhIbTuUfmIeO0KOq5xVB3": {
"friends": {
"IbTuUfmIeO0KOBr5Q4gAqD": true
},
"name": "Mary Chen",
"journal": {
"entry 1- trader joes": "went to store! :)",
"entry 2- ate sushi": "took out the garbage today then got free sushi from trader joes!!!"
},
"whenLoggedInJournal": {
"1": "1997-12-25",
"2": "2016-2-23"
}
},
"L8kBHaGBr5Q4gAqDOhFY29Okepm1": {
"friends": {
"D0Ez8edYhIbTuUfmIeO0KOq5xVB3": true
},
"name": "Mr Owner",
"journal": {
"log 1": "spotted some drunkard in my store",
"log 2": "drainage pipe clogged with tomatos, I suspect the drunkard",
"log 3": "did inventory check, 1 less sushi box, suspect the drunkard"
},
"whenLoggedInLog": {
"1": "1997-12-25",
"2": "2016-2-27",
"3": "2016-4-2"
}
}
}
}
I read through "Structuring data" on the Firebase guide, but I did not grasp how to add in trees at a time. I also want to achieve a flattened data set; would that be necessary for what I am doing?

Answer 1

The recommended Firebase data structure is to pull up each entity to its own top-level node. So in your case that would lead to:
{
"userNames": {
"D0Ez8edYhIbTuUfmIeO0KOq5xVB3": "Mary Chen",
"L8kBHaGBr5Q4gAqDOhFY29Okepm1": "Mr Owner"
},
"userFriends": {
"D0Ez8edYhIbTuUfmIeO0KOq5xVB3": {
"IbTuUfmIeO0KOBr5Q4gAqD": true
},
"L8kBHaGBr5Q4gAqDOhFY29Okepm1": {
"D0Ez8edYhIbTuUfmIeO0KOq5xVB3": true
}
},
"userJournals": {
"D0Ez8edYhIbTuUfmIeO0KOq5xVB3": {
"entry 1- trader joes": "went to store! :)",
"entry 2- ate sushi": "took out the garbage today then got free sushi from trader joes!!!"
},
"L8kBHaGBr5Q4gAqDOhFY29Okepm1": {
"log 1": "spotted some drunkard in my store",
"log 2": "drainage pipe clogged with tomatos, I suspect the drunkard",
"log 3": "did inventory check, 1 less sushi box, suspect the drunkard"
}
},
"whenLoggedInJournals": {
"D0Ez8edYhIbTuUfmIeO0KOq5xVB3": {
"1": "1997-12-25",
"2": "2016-2-23"
},
"L8kBHaGBr5Q4gAqDOhFY29Okepm1": {
"1": "1997-12-25",
"2": "2016-2-27",
"3": "2016-4-2"
}
}
}
This structure:
makes it easier to load parts of the user data, e.g. just the names
makes it easier to secure the data, e.g. make the user names public, their friend list viewable by themselves and their friends and the journals and log-in data only viewable by themselves