Error when trying to read .info/serverTimeOffset

[rvalitov]

Describe the issue you are experiencing

I want to read the serverTimeOffset to understand the difference in time between the local server and Firebase hosting.

$timeOffset = $database->getReference(".info/serverTimeOffset")->getValue();

I get error:

In Database.php line 43:
The child key ".info" contains one of the following invalid characters: ".$#[]"
In Validator.php line 66: The child key ".info" contains one of the following invalid characters: ".$#[]"

Is there any way to read the time offset?

Installed packages

barryvdh/laravel-dompdf            v0.9.0  A DOMPDF Wrapper for Laravel
brick/math                         0.9.3   Arbitrary-precision arithmetic library
chillerlan/php-qrcode              4.3.1   A QR code generator. PHP 7.4+
chillerlan/php-settings-container  2.1.2   A container class for immutable settings objects. Not a DI container. PHP 7.4+
doctrine/inflector                 2.0.3   PHP Doctrine Inflector is a small library that can perform string manipulations with regard to upper/lowercase and singular/plural forms of words.
doctrine/instantiator              1.4.0   A small, lightweight utility to instantiate objects in PHP without invoking their constructors
doctrine/lexer                     1.2.1   PHP Doctrine Lexer parser library that can be used in Top-Down, Recursive Descent Parsers.
dompdf/dompdf                      v1.0.2  DOMPDF is a CSS 2.1 compliant HTML to PDF converter
dragonmantank/cron-expression      v3.1.0  CRON for PHP: Calculate the next or previous run date and determine if a CRON expression is due
egulias/email-validator            2.1.25  A library for validating emails against several RFCs
fakerphp/faker                     v1.16.0 Faker is a PHP library that generates fake data for you.
fig/http-message-util              1.1.5   Utility classes and constants for use with PSR-7 (psr/http-message)
firebase/php-jwt                   v5.4.0  A simple library to encode and decode JSON Web Tokens (JWT) in PHP. Should conform to the current spec.
google/auth                        v1.18.0 Google Auth Library for PHP
google/cloud-core                  v1.43.0 Google Cloud PHP shared dependency, providing functionality useful to all components.
google/cloud-storage               v1.25.1 Cloud Storage Client for PHP
google/crc32                       v0.1.0  Various CRC32 implementations
graham-campbell/result-type        v1.0.2  An Implementation Of The Result Type
guzzlehttp/guzzle                  7.3.0   Guzzle is a PHP HTTP client library
guzzlehttp/promises                1.4.1   Guzzle promises library
guzzlehttp/psr7                    2.1.0   PSR-7 message implementation that also provides common utility methods
hamcrest/hamcrest-php              v2.0.1  This is the PHP port of Hamcrest Matchers
illuminate/auth                    v8.63.0 The Illuminate Auth package.
illuminate/broadcasting            v8.63.0 The Illuminate Broadcasting package.
illuminate/bus                     v8.63.0 The Illuminate Bus package.
illuminate/cache                   v8.62.0 The Illuminate Cache package.
illuminate/collections             v8.63.0 The Illuminate Collections package.
illuminate/config                  v8.63.0 The Illuminate Config package.
illuminate/console                 v8.63.0 The Illuminate Console package.
illuminate/container               v8.63.0 The Illuminate Container package.
illuminate/contracts               v8.63.0 The Illuminate Contracts package.
illuminate/database                v8.63.0 The Illuminate Database package.
illuminate/encryption              v8.63.0 The Illuminate Encryption package.
illuminate/events                  v8.63.0 The Illuminate Events package.
illuminate/filesystem              v8.63.0 The Illuminate Filesystem package.
illuminate/hashing                 v8.63.0 The Illuminate Hashing package.
illuminate/http                    v8.63.0 The Illuminate Http package.
illuminate/log                     v8.63.0 The Illuminate Log package.
illuminate/macroable               v8.62.0 The Illuminate Macroable package.
illuminate/pagination              v8.63.0 The Illuminate Pagination package.
illuminate/pipeline                v8.63.0 The Illuminate Pipeline package.
illuminate/queue                   v8.63.0 The Illuminate Queue package.
illuminate/session                 v8.63.0 The Illuminate Session package.
illuminate/support                 v8.63.0 The Illuminate Support package.
illuminate/testing                 v8.63.0 The Illuminate Testing package.
illuminate/translation             v8.63.0 The Illuminate Translation package.
illuminate/validation              v8.63.0 The Illuminate Validation package.
illuminate/view                    v8.63.0 The Illuminate View package.
kreait/clock                       1.1.0   A PHP 7.0 compatible clock abstraction
kreait/firebase-php                5.24.0  Firebase Admin SDK
kreait/firebase-tokens             1.16.1  A library to work with Firebase tokens
kreait/laravel-firebase            3.1.0   A Laravel package for the Firebase PHP Admin SDK
laravel/lumen-framework            v8.2.7  The Laravel Lumen Framework.
laravel/serializable-closure       v1.0.2  Laravel Serializable Closure provides an easy and secure way to serialize closures in PHP.
laravel/tinker                     v2.6.2  Powerful REPL for the Laravel framework.
lcobucci/clock                     2.0.0   Yet another clock abstraction
lcobucci/jwt                       4.0.4   A simple library to work with JSON Web Token and JSON Web Signature
mailjet/mailjet-apiv3-php          v1.5.5  PHP wrapper for the Mailjet API
mockery/mockery                    1.4.4   Mockery is a simple yet flexible PHP mock object framework
monolog/monolog                    2.3.5   Sends your logs to files, sockets, inboxes, databases and various web services
mtdowling/jmespath.php             2.6.1   Declaratively specify how to extract elements from a JSON document
myclabs/deep-copy                  1.10.2  Create deep copies (clones) of your objects
nesbot/carbon                      2.53.1  An API extension for DateTime that supports 281 different languages.
nikic/fast-route                   v1.3.0  Fast request router for PHP
nikic/php-parser                   v4.13.0 A PHP parser written in PHP
opis/closure                       3.6.2   A library that can be used to serialize closures (anonymous functions) and arbitrary objects.
phar-io/manifest                   2.0.3   Component for reading phar.io manifest information from a PHP Archive (PHAR)
phar-io/version                    3.1.0   Library for handling version information and constraints
phenx/php-font-lib                 0.5.2   A library to read, parse, export and make subsets of different types of font files.
phenx/php-svg-lib                  0.3.4   A library to read, parse and export to PDF SVG files.
phpdocumentor/reflection-common    2.2.0   Common reflection classes used by phpdocumentor to reflect the code structure
phpdocumentor/reflection-docblock  5.2.2   With this component, a library can provide support for annotations via DocBlocks or otherwise retrieve information that is embedded in a DocBlock.
phpdocumentor/type-resolver        1.5.1   A PSR-5 based resolver of Class names, Types and Structural Element Names
phpoption/phpoption                1.8.0   Option Type for PHP
phpspec/prophecy                   1.14.0  Highly opinionated mocking framework for PHP 5.3+
phpunit/php-code-coverage          9.2.7   Library that provides collection, processing, and rendering functionality for PHP code coverage information.
phpunit/php-file-iterator          3.0.5   FilterIterator implementation that filters files based on a list of suffixes.
phpunit/php-invoker                3.1.1   Invoke callables with a timeout
phpunit/php-text-template          2.0.4   Simple template engine.
phpunit/php-timer                  5.0.3   Utility class for timing
phpunit/phpunit                    9.5.10  The PHP Unit Testing framework.
psr/cache                          1.0.1   Common interface for caching libraries
psr/container                      1.1.1   Common Container Interface (PHP FIG PSR-11)
psr/event-dispatcher               1.0.0   Standard interfaces for event handling.
psr/http-client                    1.0.1   Common interface for HTTP clients
psr/http-factory                   1.0.1   Common interfaces for PSR-7 HTTP message factories
psr/http-message                   1.0.1   Common interface for HTTP messages
psr/log                            1.1.4   Common interface for logging libraries
psr/simple-cache                   1.0.1   Common interfaces for simple caching
psy/psysh                          v0.10.9 An interactive shell for modern PHP.
ralouphie/getallheaders            3.0.3   A polyfill for getallheaders.
ramsey/collection                  1.2.1   A PHP library for representing and manipulating collections.
ramsey/uuid                        4.2.3   A PHP library for generating and working with universally unique identifiers (UUIDs).
riverline/multipart-parser         2.0.8   One class library to parse multipart content with encoding and charset support.
rize/uri-template                  0.3.3   PHP URI Template (RFC 6570) supports both expansion & extraction
sabberworm/php-css-parser          8.3.1   Parser for CSS Files written in PHP
sebastian/cli-parser               1.0.1   Library for parsing CLI options
sebastian/code-unit                1.0.8   Collection of value objects that represent the PHP code units
sebastian/code-unit-reverse-lookup 2.0.3   Looks up which function or method a line of code belongs to
sebastian/comparator               4.0.6   Provides the functionality to compare PHP values for equality
sebastian/complexity               2.0.2   Library for calculating the complexity of PHP code units
sebastian/diff                     4.0.4   Diff implementation
sebastian/environment              5.1.3   Provides functionality to handle HHVM/PHP environments
sebastian/exporter                 4.0.3   Provides the functionality to export PHP variables for visualization
sebastian/global-state             5.0.3   Snapshotting of global state
sebastian/lines-of-code            1.0.3   Library for counting the lines of code in PHP source code
sebastian/object-enumerator        4.0.4   Traverses array structures and object graphs to enumerate all referenced objects
sebastian/object-reflector         2.0.4   Allows reflection of object attributes, including inherited and non-public ones
sebastian/recursion-context        4.0.4   Provides functionality to recursively process PHP variables
sebastian/resource-operations      3.0.3   Provides a list of PHP built-in functions that operate on resources
sebastian/type                     2.3.4   Collection of value objects that represent the types of the PHP type system
sebastian/version                  3.0.2   Library that helps with managing the version number of Git-hosted PHP projects
symfony/console                    v5.3.7  Eases the creation of beautiful and testable command line interfaces
symfony/deprecation-contracts      v2.4.0  A generic function and convention to trigger deprecation notices
symfony/error-handler              v5.3.7  Provides tools to manage errors and ease debugging PHP code
symfony/event-dispatcher           v5.3.7  Provides tools that allow your application components to communicate with each other by dispatching events and listening to them
symfony/event-dispatcher-contracts v2.4.0  Generic abstractions related to dispatching event
symfony/finder                     v5.3.7  Finds files and directories via an intuitive fluent interface
symfony/http-client-contracts      v2.4.0  Generic abstractions related to HTTP clients
symfony/http-foundation            v5.3.7  Defines an object-oriented layer for the HTTP specification
symfony/http-kernel                v5.3.9  Provides a structured process for converting a Request into a Response
symfony/mime                       v5.3.8  Allows manipulating MIME messages
symfony/polyfill-ctype             v1.23.0 Symfony polyfill for ctype functions
symfony/polyfill-intl-grapheme     v1.23.1 Symfony polyfill for intl's grapheme_* functions
symfony/polyfill-intl-idn          v1.23.0 Symfony polyfill for intl's idn_to_ascii and idn_to_utf8 functions
symfony/polyfill-intl-normalizer   v1.23.0 Symfony polyfill for intl's Normalizer class and related functions
symfony/polyfill-mbstring          v1.23.1 Symfony polyfill for the Mbstring extension
symfony/polyfill-php72             v1.23.0 Symfony polyfill backporting some PHP 7.2+ features to lower PHP versions
symfony/polyfill-php73             v1.23.0 Symfony polyfill backporting some PHP 7.3+ features to lower PHP versions
symfony/polyfill-php80             v1.23.1 Symfony polyfill backporting some PHP 8.0+ features to lower PHP versions
symfony/polyfill-php81             v1.23.0 Symfony polyfill backporting some PHP 8.1+ features to lower PHP versions
symfony/process                    v5.3.7  Executes commands in sub-processes
symfony/service-contracts          v2.4.0  Generic abstractions related to writing services
symfony/string                     v5.3.7  Provides an object-oriented API to strings and deals with bytes, UTF-8 code points and grapheme clusters in a unified way
symfony/translation                v5.3.9  Provides tools to internationalize your application
symfony/translation-contracts      v2.4.0  Generic abstractions related to translation
symfony/var-dumper                 v5.3.8  Provides mechanisms for walking through any arbitrary PHP variable
theseer/tokenizer                  1.2.1   A small library for converting tokenized PHP source code into XML and potentially other formats
vlucas/phpdotenv                   v5.3.1  Loads environment variables from `.env` to `getenv()`, `$_ENV` and `$_SERVER` automagically.
voku/portable-ascii                1.5.6   Portable ASCII library - performance optimized (ascii) string functions for php.
webmozart/assert                   1.10.0  Assertions to validate method input/output with nice error messages.

PHP version and extensions

composer-plugin-api    2.0.0    The Composer Plugin API
composer-runtime-api   2.0.0    The Composer Runtime API
ext-bcmath             7.4.2    The bcmath PHP extension
ext-calendar           7.4.2    The calendar PHP extension
ext-ctype              7.4.2    The ctype PHP extension
ext-curl               7.4.2    The curl PHP extension
ext-date               7.4.2    The date PHP extension
ext-dom                20031129 The dom PHP extension
ext-fileinfo           7.4.2    The fileinfo PHP extension
ext-filter             7.4.2    The filter PHP extension
ext-ftp                7.4.2    The ftp PHP extension
ext-gd                 7.4.2    The gd PHP extension
ext-hash               7.4.2    The hash PHP extension
ext-iconv              7.4.2    The iconv PHP extension
ext-imap               7.4.2    The imap PHP extension
ext-intl               7.4.2    The intl PHP extension
ext-json               7.4.2    The json PHP extension
ext-libxml             7.4.2    The libxml PHP extension
ext-mailparse          3.1.0    The mailparse PHP extension
ext-mbstring           7.4.2    The mbstring PHP extension
ext-mysqli             7.4.2    The mysqli PHP extension
ext-mysqlnd            0        The mysqlnd PHP extension (actual version: mysqlnd 7.4.2)
ext-openssl            7.4.2    The openssl PHP extension
ext-pcre               7.4.2    The pcre PHP extension
ext-pdo                7.4.2    The PDO PHP extension
ext-phar               7.4.2    The Phar PHP extension
ext-readline           7.4.2    The readline PHP extension
ext-reflection         7.4.2    The Reflection PHP extension
ext-session            7.4.2    The session PHP extension
ext-simplexml          7.4.2    The SimpleXML PHP extension
ext-sockets            7.4.2    The sockets PHP extension
ext-spl                7.4.2    The SPL PHP extension
ext-tokenizer          7.4.2    The tokenizer PHP extension
ext-xdebug             2.9.6    The xdebug PHP extension
ext-xml                7.4.2    The xml PHP extension
ext-xmlreader          7.4.2    The xmlreader PHP extension
ext-xmlwriter          7.4.2    The xmlwriter PHP extension
ext-zip                1.15.5   The zip PHP extension
ext-zlib               7.4.2    The zlib PHP extension
lib-curl               7.67.0   The curl library
lib-curl-libssh2       1.8.2    curl libssh2 version
lib-curl-openssl       1.1.1.4  curl OpenSSL version (1.1.1.4)
lib-curl-zlib          1.2.11   curl zlib version
lib-date-timelib       2018.03  date timelib version
lib-date-zoneinfo      2019.3   zoneinfo ("Olson") database for date
lib-fileinfo-libmagic  537      fileinfo libmagic version
lib-gd                 2.0.35   The gd library
lib-gd-freetype        2.9.1    freetype version for gd
lib-gd-libjpeg         9.0      libjpeg version for gd
lib-gd-libpng          1.6.34   libpng version for gd
lib-gd-libxpm          3.5.12   libxpm version for gd
lib-iconv              1.16     The iconv library
lib-icu                65.1     The ICU unicode and globalization support library
lib-icu-cldr           36       ICU CLDR project version
lib-icu-unicode        12.1.0   ICU unicode version
lib-icu-zoneinfo       2019.3   zoneinfo ("Olson") database for icu
lib-libxml             2.9.10   libxml library version
lib-mbstring-libmbfl   1.3.2    mbstring libmbfl version
lib-mbstring-oniguruma 6.9.4    mbstring oniguruma version
lib-openssl            1.1.1.4  OpenSSL 1.1.1d  10 Sep 2019
lib-pcre               10.33    The pcre library
lib-pcre-unicode       11.0.0   PCRE Unicode version support
lib-zlib               1.2.11   The zlib library
php                    7.4.2    The PHP interpreter
php-64bit              7.4.2    The PHP interpreter, 64bit
php-ipv6               7.4.2    The PHP interpreter, with IPv6 support

On which operating system(s) does the issue occur?

• [X] Linux
• [ ] MacOS
• [X] Windows

Steps to reproduce the issue.

$timeOffset = $database->getReference(".info/serverTimeOffset")->getValue();

Error message/Stack trace

In Database.php line 43:

The child key ".info" contains one of the following invalid characters: ".$#[]"

In Validator.php line 66:

The child key ".info" contains one of the following invalid characters: ".$#[]"

Additional information

No response

[jeromegamez]

When I remove the . char from the validator in https://github.com/kreait/firebase-php/blob/5.x/src/Firebase/Database/Reference/Validator.php#L14 and try to call this reference, the Firebase REST API returns the error Invalid path: Invalid token in path, and I also can't save a value in the RTDB in the Firebase Console on a path that contains a dot.

If this is supposed to work, can you please show me some official documentation or a place where this works in one of the official Admin SDKs?

[rvalitov]

Thank you for a prompt reply. I found information about the serverTimeOffset here https://firebase.google.com/docs/database/web/offline-capabilities#server-timestamps I didn't find any specific mentions about this parameter in Admin SDK, perhaps I didn't search good. I expect that Admin SDK allows to work with all the functionality described in Realtime database manual, therefore I expect that serverTimeOffset should also be supported. At least I didn't find any notice that serverTimeOffset is not available.

[rvalitov]

Dot is really a special reserved character, that can only be used in special reserved path references like .info. This path is read only and is handled by Firebase, not available for save.

[jeromegamez]

This is a feature available in the Firebase Client SDK, not the Admin SDK, and honestly… I don't know how they do it 😅. It's definitely not a real database reference or the Firebase REST API doesn't allow access to it.

However, I will consider this a feature request. In the meantime, you can simulate the same behavior with something like the following:

$offsetRef = $db->getReference('serverTimeOffset')->set(\Kreait\Firebase\Database::SERVER_TIMESTAMP);
$offsetValue = (int) $offsetRef->getValue();

$here = new DateTimeImmutable();
$there = DateTime::createFromFormat('U.v', number_format($offsetValue/1000, 3, '.', ''));

$offset = $there->getTimestamp() - $here->getTimestamp();

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