Getting started with Firebase in Swift

These simple steps will be your guide to integrating firebase into your swift app.

Installation of Firebase

Go to https://firebase.google.com/docs/ios/installation-methods
- If migrating from a CocoaPods-based project, run pod de-integrate to remove CocoaPods from your Xcode project. The CocoaPods-generated .xcworkspace file can safely be deleted afterward.
  
  If you're adding Firebase to a project for the first time, this step can be ignored.
Copy https://github.com/firebase/firebase-ios-sdk.git
Click on project name in Xcode
Click on Package Dependencies
Paste git url and select the appropriate repository
Select project. And note down the version of firebase

Note: The SPM may take a while to verify the repository

Check the needed/appropriate boxes

For this app (chat clone app), the following boxes were selected -> FireBaseAuth, FireBaseStorage and FireBaseFirestore.

Select add package, the following must be loading and adding to your project

Using Firebase in project

First create your project in firebase console at console.firebase.google.com

Firechat is the name of this app demo.
Select iOS on the dashboard
Copy the bundle ID of your project (in Xcode)
Paste the bundle ID in here
Download the config file
Drag the file into the project as shown below
Step 3 can be ignored as we have already added Firebase through SPM
To initialise the firebase SDK inside the project -> create an init() function

Using Firebase Authentication
Select authentication from build and click on Get Started

Select the type of how you want the user to be authenticated. In the case of this app demo we will be using email/passwords.
Click enable for Email/Password

Initialise authentication in your app

import Firebase

class FirebaseManager: NSObject {
    let auth: Auth
    static let shared = FirebaseManager()
    override init() {
        FirebaseApp.configure()
        self.auth = Auth.auth()    
        super.init()
    }
}

Writing the above singleton object, allows us to configure and initialise the firebase sdk once. Initialising the firebase more than one time can result in the app crashing, especially when using previews in Xcode.

Also, now we can use authentication throughout our app through this firebase manager class.

For example, to create user we can simply write the following code:

   FirebaseManager.shared.auth.createUser(withEmail: emailAddress, password: password)

The manager class can contain other configurations of firebase such as firestore.

Note: we can also install Firestore in a better way.

Installing firestorm through the SPM makes the project take longer to compile compared to installing the package itself from GitHub which is a precompiled version: https://github.com/invertase/firestore-ios-sdk-frameworks

Installation of Firebase

Using Firebase in project

Using Firebase Authentication