Authenticate Using Facebook Login and C++

You can let your users authenticate with Firebase using their Facebook accounts by integrating Facebook Login into your app.

Before you begin

  1. Add Firebase to your C++ project.
  2. On the Facebook for Developers site, get the App ID and an App Secret for your app.
  3. Enable Facebook Login:
    1. In the Firebase console, open the Auth section.
    2. On the Sign in method tab, enable the Facebook sign-in method and specify the App ID and App Secret you got from Facebook.
    3. Then, make sure your OAuth redirect URI (e.g. my-app-12345.firebaseapp.com/__/auth/handler) is listed as one of your OAuth redirect URIs in your Facebook app's settings page on the Facebook for Developers site in the Product Settings > Facebook Login config.

Access the firebase::auth::Auth class

The Auth class is the gateway for all API calls.
  1. Add the Auth and App header files:
    #include "firebase/app.h"
    #include "firebase/auth.h"
    
  2. In your initialization code, create a firebase::App class.
    #if defined(__ANDROID__)
      firebase::App* app =
          firebase::App::Create(firebase::AppOptions(), my_jni_env, my_activity);
    #else
      firebase::App* app = firebase::App::Create(firebase::AppOptions());
    #endif  // defined(__ANDROID__)
    
  3. Acquire the firebase::auth::Auth class for your firebase::App. There is a one-to-one mapping between App and Auth.
    firebase::auth::Auth* auth = firebase::auth::Auth::GetAuth(app);
    

Authenticate with Firebase

  1. Follow instructions for Android and iOS+ to get an access token for the signed-in Facebook user.
  2. After a user successfully signs in, exchange the access token for a Firebase credential, and authenticate with Firebase using the Firebase credential:
    firebase::auth::Credential credential =
        firebase::auth::FacebookAuthProvider::GetCredential(access_token);
    firebase::Future<firebase::auth::AuthResult> result =
        auth->SignInAndRetrieveDataWithCredential(credential);
    
  3. If your program has an update loop that runs regularly (say at 30 or 60 times per second), you can check the results once per update with Auth::SignInAndRetrieveDataWithCredentialLastResult:
    firebase::Future<firebase::auth::AuthResult> result =
        auth->SignInAndRetrieveDataWithCredentialLastResult();
    if (result.status() == firebase::kFutureStatusComplete) {
      if (result.error() == firebase::auth::kAuthErrorNone) {
        firebase::auth::AuthResult auth_result = *result.result();
        printf("Sign in succeeded for `%s`\n",
               auth_result.user.display_name().c_str());
      } else {
        printf("Sign in failed with error '%s'\n", result.error_message());
      }
    }
    
    Or, if your program is event driven, you may prefer to register a callback on the Future.

Register a callback on a Future

Some programs have Update functions that are called 30 or 60 times per second. For example, many games follow this model. These programs can call the LastResult functions to poll asynchronous calls. However, if your program is event driven, you may prefer to register callback functions. A callback function is called upon completion of the Future.
void OnCreateCallback(const firebase::Future<firebase::auth::User*>& result,
                      void* user_data) {
  // The callback is called when the Future enters the `complete` state.
  assert(result.status() == firebase::kFutureStatusComplete);

  // Use `user_data` to pass-in program context, if you like.
  MyProgramContext* program_context = static_cast<MyProgramContext*>(user_data);

  // Important to handle both success and failure situations.
  if (result.error() == firebase::auth::kAuthErrorNone) {
    firebase::auth::User* user = *result.result();
    printf("Create user succeeded for email %s\n", user->email().c_str());

    // Perform other actions on User, if you like.
    firebase::auth::User::UserProfile profile;
    profile.display_name = program_context->display_name;
    user->UpdateUserProfile(profile);

  } else {
    printf("Created user failed with error '%s'\n", result.error_message());
  }
}

void CreateUser(firebase::auth::Auth* auth) {
  // Callbacks work the same for any firebase::Future.
  firebase::Future<firebase::auth::AuthResult> result =
      auth->CreateUserWithEmailAndPasswordLastResult();

  // `&my_program_context` is passed verbatim to OnCreateCallback().
  result.OnCompletion(OnCreateCallback, &my_program_context);
}
The callback function can also be a lambda, if you prefer.
void CreateUserUsingLambda(firebase::auth::Auth* auth) {
  // Callbacks work the same for any firebase::Future.
  firebase::Future<firebase::auth::AuthResult> result =
      auth->CreateUserWithEmailAndPasswordLastResult();

  // The lambda has the same signature as the callback function.
  result.OnCompletion(
      [](const firebase::Future<firebase::auth::User*>& result,
         void* user_data) {
        // `user_data` is the same as &my_program_context, below.
        // Note that we can't capture this value in the [] because std::function
        // is not supported by our minimum compiler spec (which is pre C++11).
        MyProgramContext* program_context =
            static_cast<MyProgramContext*>(user_data);

        // Process create user result...
        (void)program_context;
      },
      &my_program_context);
}

Next steps

After a user signs in for the first time, a new user account is created and linked to the credentials—that is, the user name and password, phone number, or auth provider information—the user signed in with. This new account is stored as part of your Firebase project, and can be used to identify a user across every app in your project, regardless of how the user signs in.

  • In your apps, you can get the user's basic profile information from the firebase::auth::User object:

    firebase::auth::User user = auth->current_user();
    if (user.is_valid()) {
      std::string name = user.display_name();
      std::string email = user.email();
      std::string photo_url = user.photo_url();
      // The user's ID, unique to the Firebase project.
      // Do NOT use this value to authenticate with your backend server,
      // if you have one. Use firebase::auth::User::Token() instead.
      std::string uid = user.uid();
    }
    
  • In your Firebase Realtime Database and Cloud Storage Security Rules, you can get the signed-in user's unique user ID from the auth variable, and use it to control what data a user can access.

You can allow users to sign in to your app using multiple authentication providers by linking auth provider credentials to an existing user account.

To sign out a user, call SignOut():

auth->SignOut();