Not Only Swift Weekly - Issue #20  9th December 2022

Fewer cold starts, more features in Cloud Functions

Did you ever need to set up a server to run some backend code? Cloud Functions for Firebase are a great way to build backend functionality without having to set up, manage, and maintain your own server.

In this blog post, Dmitry Lyalin and Jeff Huleatt walk through some of the new features of Cloud Functions for Firebase v2, such as

• Fewer cold stars
• Faster deploys
• Parameterized configurations

What's great about Cloud Functions for Firebase - you can call them from your mobile app, and the call will include information about the authenticated user. Here is a code snippet that show how to call a HTTP Callable Cloud Function from a Swift app:

import FirebaseFunctions

func callFunction(numer1: Int, number2: Int) {
  // Create a reference to the Cloud Functions service
  let addNumbers = Functions.functions().httpsCallable("addnumbers")
  Task {
    do {
      // Call the function and pass in the data you want to pass as a dictionary
      let result = try await addNumbers.call(["firstNumber": number1, "secondNumber": number2])

      // Parse the result and print it
      if let data = result.data as? [String: Any], let operationResult = data["operationResult"] as? Int {
        print("The result is \(operationResult)")
      }
    }
    catch {
      print(error)
    }
  }
}

firebase.blog