[firebase_storage] Include List API.

[Levi-Lesches]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
As described in the Firebase docs, the List API allows the client to list all files and subdirectories inside a given folder. This is very helpful for when the contents of a directory are not known in advance, and avoids temporary workarounds (such as a Cloud Function that populates an index in Cloud Firestore)

Describe the solution you'd like
A list and listAll method for StorageReference that provides access to the List APIs.

Additional context
Again, this removes the need for complicated and buggy workarounds, as well as minimizing the connection between Firebase services -- by introducing users to Cloud Function and Cloud Firestore, chances are something will go wrong as opposed to simply using Cloud Storage.

[collinjackson]

This seems like a good idea! I don't have a timeline on implementation but PRs would be most welcome.

[SheriefAlaa]

I am also surprised I cannot list all files in the bucket. Is there any way I can do this with firebase_storage: ^3.0.6?

[Levi-Lesches]

I use metadata.

Say you want to list all the articles in a folder. You can have a file named, say, articles.txt inside with metadata: issues = ["article_1.pdf", "article_2.pdf"]. Since metadata can only have String keys and values, you can either encode the list as json or, if it's just a list, use Iterable.join and String.split: metadata = {"issues": "article_1.pdf, article_2.pdf"}

[MilesAdamson]

Any news on this? Having to track all the filenames my users upload to know them in advance is a huge pain. If I could just list the filenames in a bucket or folder, that would be extremely helpful

[Levi-Lesches]

Well it seems that #232 is working on this. It's almost done, just some minor cleanup needed. Fair warning it doesn't lazy load -- all filenames are loaded in memory at once. Only a problem if you have literally thousands of files in the same folder.

[creativecreatorormaybenot]

@Levi-Lesches

Only a problem if you have literally thousands of files in the same folder.

That would probably be the case most of the time with user-generated content.

[Levi-Lesches]

Yep, totally agree, at least I'm lucky enough to not have that particular issue. According to the PR:

I will try to implement also the "pagination" feature, but for the moment I have some crazy days so maybe next week.

[MilesAdamson]

@Levi-Lesches

Only a problem if you have literally thousands of files in the same folder.

That would probably be the case most of the time with user-generated content.

Won't be an issue for me thankfully. Can't imagine having more than 15 files in the same folder. Thanks for the responses