Firebase Emulator For Development

[rparker2003]

Describe the bug

• We are currently using the real database and its firestore connection in our testing files. This is leading to thousdands of requests on our actual database every time we run the testing suite.
• Increasing the usage on our actual database is not good because after 50k reads, 20k writes, or 20k deletes, we will be locked out of doing that action on our database server. This information can be seen in the last screenshot on this issue. As you can see in the screenshot above it, we hit our 50k peak reads on March 27th and this stopped us completely from accessing the server for that entire day.
• Testing on the actual database also leads to improper information on the server which can lead to the actual app crashing if it tries to access information not expected.

To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Run the test suite in the backend server and note the increase of usage in the Firebase Console.

Screenshots

[rparker2003]

Setting Up Firebase Emulator Suite with Flask

1. Check Firebase CLI Installation:

   • Open terminal and run:

     firebase --version

   • If not installed, run:

     npm install -g firebase-tools

2. Log in to Firebase:

   • Follow the instructions to log in to your Firebase account. (Google MunchApp2024 Account)

     firebase login

3. Initialize Firebase Project:

   • In the backend directory, run:

     firebase init

   • Follow prompts, select Firestore service, use default file locations.

4. Install Firebase Emulator Suite:

   • In the backend directory, run:

     firebase setup:emulators:firestore

5. Add Environment Variables:

   • Open the backend .env file, and add:

     FIRESTORE_EMULATOR_HOST="127.0.0.1:8080"
     GCLOUD_PROJECT="munch-37564"

6. Start Firebase Emulator:

   • Run the command:

     firebase emulators:start

7. Start Flask Server:

   • Start the backend server, run:

     python server.py

8. Test the Routes:

   • Go to http://127.0.0.1:4000/firestore in your web browser to see Firebase Emulator Suite website.
   • Test any route at address http://127.0.0.1:5000/api/ and verify the code is interacting with Firebase Emulator instead of the Cloud Firestore Database.