How do I get the server timestamp in Cloud Functions for Firebase?

Question

I know you can pull the server timestamp in web, ios, and android - but what about the new Cloud Functions for Firebase? I can\'t figure out how to get the server timestamp

Answer 1

Depends on use case

case 1

you want to set document field to server timestamp

Example can be

user {
  email: "example.com",
  lastUpdated: admin.firestore.FieldValue.serverTimestamp(),
}

Note serverTimestamp returns a non-null Object and is a placeholder value for auto-populating the current timestamp. It doesn't contain the actual timestamp. The database will replace this placeholder when it will execute the command

*Returns a sentinel used with set(), create() or update() to include a server-generated timestamp in the written data.

@return The FieldValue sentinel for use in a call to set(), create() or update().*

case 2

you want use server time stamp for your functions logic

if (currentTime == 6pm) // TODO: send push notifications
else // TODO: do nothing

for that you might want to do something like

admin.firestore.Timestamp.now() or admin.firestore.Timestamp.fromDate(new Date())

good reads: https://bigcodenerd.org/firebase-server-timestamp-cloud-functions/