Websockets with Angular 1 and Firebase

firebaseangularwebsocket.js

// First, you need a reference to your DB using the Firebase SDK
// Include <script src="path/to/firebase.js"> in index.html OR
// import firebase from 'firebase' if using a module loader like Browserify/Webpack/etc
// const DATABASEREF = firebase.database().ref(`endpoint/you/want/to/connect/to`);
// The endpoint you want to connect to is YOUR-FIREBASE-URL/<endpoint>
// I use a capital letter variable name to denote that this var (1) won't change (2) is super important so I can easily find it in my code. 

// Reference to myapp-firebase.io/messages.json
const DATABASEREF = firebase.database().ref(`messages`);

// Listen to database updates at that specific location
// The callback fn executes any time the value at that location in Firebase changes
DATABASEREF.on('value', (snapshot) => {
  // The argument passed into the cb fn has a method on it called .val() that needs to be called to access the data returned from the websocket
  // OPTIONAL: capturing the FB Key in case the data received is nested and I need it to dig into the object
  const key = Object.keys(snapshot.val())[0]; // read above comment, this isn't necessary, BUT its useful if your data is nested
  // const nestedData = snapshot.val()[key];
  const messages = snapshot.val();
  $scope.messages = messages;
  $scope.$apply(); // forces Angular to know that changes to $scope have occured
});