Authenticate Using Twitter Login on iOS

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

Authenticated users can access user-restricted data in Firebase Realtime Database and Cloud Storage.

Before you begin

1. Add Firebase to your iOS project. Include the following pods in your Podfile:

   pod 'Firebase/Auth'
   

2. Register your app as a developer application on Twitter and get your app's API Key and API Secret.
3. Enable Twitter Login:
   1. In the Firebase console, open the Auth section.
   2. On the Sign in method tab, enable the Twitter sign-in method and specify the API Key and API Secret you got from Twitter.
   3. Then, make sure your Firebase OAuth redirect URI (e.g. my-app-12345.firebaseapp.com/__/auth/handler) is set as your Callback URL in your app's settings page on your Twitter app's config.

Authenticate with Firebase

1. Integrate Twitter Login into your app by following the developer's documentation.

   In the callback method of buttonWithLogInCompletion or logInWithCompletion, get the login session's Twitter auth token and Twitter auth token secret. For example:

   Swift

   let logInButton = TWTRLogInButton(logInCompletion: { session, error in
     if (session != nil) {
       let authToken = session.authToken
       let authTokenSecret = session.authTokenSecret
       // ...
     } else {
         // ...
     }
   })
   

   Objective-C

    TWTRLogInButton *logInButton =
        [TWTRLogInButton buttonWithLogInCompletion:^(TWTRSession* session,
                                                     NSError* error) {
     if (session) {
       NSString *authToken = session.authToken;
       NSString *authTokenSecret = session.authTokenSecret;
       // ...
     } else {
       // ...
     }
   }];
   

2. Import the Firebase module in your UIApplicationDelegate:

   Swift

   import Firebase
   

   Objective-C

   @import Firebase;
   

3. Configure a FirebaseApp shared instance, typically in your application's application:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions: method:

   Swift

   // Use Firebase library to configure APIs
   FirebaseApp.configure()
   

   Objective-C

   // Use Firebase library to configure APIs
   [FIRApp configure];
   

4. After a user successfully signs in, in your implementation of didCompleteWithResult:error:, exchange the Twitter auth token and Twitter auth token secret for a Firebase credential:

   Swift

   let credential = TwitterAuthProvider.credential(withToken: session.authToken, secret: session.authTokenSecret)
   

   Objective-C

   FIRAuthCredential *credential =
       [FIRTwitterAuthProvider credentialWithToken:session.authToken
                                            secret:session.authTokenSecret];
   

5. Finally, authenticate with Firebase using the Firebase credential:

   Swift

   Auth.auth().signInAndRetrieveData(with: credential) { (authResult, error) in
     if let error = error {
       // ...
       return
     }
     // User is signed in
     // ...
   }
   

   Objective-C

   [[FIRAuth auth] signInAndRetrieveDataWithCredential:credential
                                            completion:^(FIRAuthDataResult * _Nullable authResult,
                                                         NSError * _Nullable error) {
     if (error) {
       // ...
       return;
     }
     // User successfully signed in. Get user data from the FIRUser object
     if (authResult == nil) { return; }
     FIRUser *user = authResult.user;
     // ...
   }];
   

6. Optional: Add an email address to the user's profile. When users sign in to your app with Twitter, their email addresses aren't accessible to Firebase. If you want to add email addresses to the profiles of users that sign in with Twitter, prompt users to provide their email addresses, and then call updateEmail as in the following example:

   Swift

   Auth.auth().currentUser?.updateEmail(to: email) { (error) in
     // ...
   }
   

   Objective-C

   [[FIRAuth auth].currentUser updateEmail:userInput completion:^(NSError *_Nullable error) {
     // ...
   }];
   

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 FIRUser object. See Manage Users.

• 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:.

    let firebaseAuth = Auth.auth()
do {
  try firebaseAuth.signOut()
} catch let signOutError as NSError {
  print ("Error signing out: %@", signOutError)
}
  

    NSError *signOutError;
BOOL status = [[FIRAuth auth] signOut:&signOutError];
if (!status) {
  NSLog(@"Error signing out: %@", signOutError);
  return;
}

You may also want to add error handling code for the full range of authentication errors. See Handle Errors.