title: AngularFire2 Retrieving Data Snapshot
body: <p>Right now, I am unwrapping my data using the method <a href="https://github.com/angular/angularfire2/blob/master/docs/2-retrieving-data-as-objects.md#retrieving-the-snapshot" rel="nofollow noreferrer">described in the documentation</a>. However, the documentation states:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p><strong>AngularFire2 unwraps the Firebase DataSnapshot by default</strong>, but you can get the data as the original snapshot by specifying the preserveSnapshot option.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>How would I be able to access the "default" unwrapping functionality (read: access the elements of <code>item</code>) without having the manually unwrap the data snapshot?</p>
  
  <p>My data from Firebase looks like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>{
    testObj : {
      firstName: "beckah",
      lastName: "s"
    }
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>My code (which works) is:</p>
  
  <pre><code>import { Component } from '@angular/core';
  import { NavController } from 'ionic-angular';
  import { AngularFireDatabase, FirebaseObjectObservable } from 'angularfire2/database';
  
  @Component({
    selector: 'page-home',
    templateUrl: 'home.html'
  })
  export class HomePage {
    item: FirebaseObjectObservable&lt;any&gt;;
    constructor( public navCtrl: NavController,
                public db: AngularFireDatabase ) {
      this.item = db.object('/testObj', { preserveSnapshot: true });
      this.item.subscribe(snapshot =&gt; {
        console.log(snapshot.val())
      });
    }
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Which outputs</p>
  
  <pre><code>Object {firstName: "beckah", lastName: "s"}
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>How would I be able to do the exact same thing (console.log my <code>item</code> object) without manually unwrapping my snapshot like the documentation states is possible?</p>
  
  <p>Is there some kind of <code>this.item.get("firstName")</code> method?</p>