Check if value exists in firebase DB

I can't make comments yet, so I'm posting an answer:

To add to the suggested answer, if you wanted to query whether or not any users exist, you can try to improve performance by adding .limitToFirst(1) or .limitToLast(1). This way you can limit your retrieved data to the minimum:

//Check if any users exist
firebase.database().ref(`users`).limitToFirst(1).once("value", snapshot => {
   if (snapshot.exists()){
      console.log("exists!");
      // TODO: Handle that users do exist
      return true;
   }

   // TODO: Handle that users do not exist
});

sources: https://firebase.google.com/docs/reference/js/firebase.database.Query#limitToFirst

This is a similar solution if you want to check if an email exists in firebase

firebase.app().database().ref("shops").orderByChild("email")
   .equalTo(user.email).once("value", snapshot => {

            const userData = snapshot.val();

            // Check if it is a SHOP.
            if (userData) {
              console.log("Shop logged in!");
              this.setState({
                isAdminLoggedIn: false,
                isUserLoggedIn: false,
                isShopLoggedIn: true,
                isNoneLoggedIn: false
              });

            // Check if it is a USER.
            } else {
              console.log("User logged in");
              this.setState({
                isAdminLoggedIn: false,
                isUserLoggedIn: true,
                isShopLoggedIn: false,
                isNoneLoggedIn: false
              });
            }
        });

The exists() method is part of the snapshot object which is returned by firebase queries. So keep in mind that you won't be able to avoid retrieving the data to verify if it exists or not.

ref.child("users").orderByChild("ID").equalTo("U1EL5623").once("value",snapshot => {
    if (snapshot.exists()){
      const userData = snapshot.val();
      console.log("exists!", userData);
    }
});

---

Observations:

In case you are in a different scenario which you have the exact ref path where the object might be, you wont need to add orderByChild and equalTo. In this case, you can fetch the path to the object directly so it wont need any search processing from firebase. Also, if you know one of the properties the object must have you can do as the snippet below and make it retrieve just this property and not the entire object. The result will be a much faster check.

//every user must have an email
firebase.database().ref(`users/${userId}/email`).once("value", snapshot => {
   if (snapshot.exists()){
      console.log("exists!");
      const email = snapshot.val();
   }
});