I am facing problems with nullable fields when trying to use the data returned when executing my query.
Schema
A simplified schema for demonstration purpose:
type Query {
members: [Instrument!]!
}
type Instrument {
series: SeriesType!
...
}
type SeriesType {
dividendYield: SeriesMethods
...
}
type SeriesMethods{
latest: Float!
...
}
There is nullable data that is resolved at dividendYield and a typical response I get when executing the query is shown in the following section.
Typical Response
A picture of the query and response can be seen here.
So what is the problem???
We are using this data to for visuals on a web app. The data is read in as an object such that you are able to access the data by data.series.dividendYield.latest. The problem comes in when dividendYield returns null as there is there no longer exists a latest field anymore.
For the client side it will always be necessary for the field to be present in the data, even if the parent resolver is null. Is it possible for the resolvers to be setup such that all children fields also return null rather than not appearing in the data response? Any other solutions would also be appreciated.
Related
Let's say my graphql server wants to fetch the following data as JSON where person3 and person5 are some id's:
"persons": {
"person3": {
"id": "person3",
"name": "Mike"
},
"person5": {
"id": "person5",
"name": "Lisa"
}
}
Question: How to create the schema type definition with apollo?
The keys person3 and person5 here are dynamically generated depending on my query (i.e. the area used in the query). So at another time I might get person1, person2, person3 returned.
As you see persons is not an Iterable, so the following won't work as a graphql type definition I did with apollo:
type Person {
id: String
name: String
}
type Query {
persons(area: String): [Person]
}
The keys in the persons object may always be different.
One solution of course would be to transform the incoming JSON data to use an array for persons, but is there no way to work with the data as such?
GraphQL relies on both the server and the client knowing ahead of time what fields are available available for each type. In some cases, the client can discover those fields (via introspection), but for the server, they always need to be known ahead of time. So to somehow dynamically generate those fields based on the returned data is not really possible.
You could utilize a custom JSON scalar (graphql-type-json module) and return that for your query:
type Query {
persons(area: String): JSON
}
By utilizing JSON, you bypass the requirement for the returned data to fit any specific structure, so you can send back whatever you want as long it's properly formatted JSON.
Of course, there's significant disadvantages in doing this. For example, you lose the safety net provided by the type(s) you would have previously used (literally any structure could be returned, and if you're returning the wrong one, you won't find out about it until the client tries to use it and fails). You also lose the ability to use resolvers for any fields within the returned data.
But... your funeral :)
As an aside, I would consider flattening out the data into an array (like you suggested in your question) before sending it back to the client. If you're writing the client code, and working with a dynamically-sized list of customers, chances are an array will be much easier to work with rather than an object keyed by id. If you're using React, for example, and displaying a component for each customer, you'll end up converting that object to an array to map it anyway. In designing your API, I would make client usability a higher consideration than avoiding additional processing of your data.
You can write your own GraphQLScalarType and precisely describe your object and your dynamic keys, what you allow and what you do not allow or transform.
See https://graphql.org/graphql-js/type/#graphqlscalartype
You can have a look at taion/graphql-type-json where he creates a Scalar that allows and transforms any kind of content:
https://github.com/taion/graphql-type-json/blob/master/src/index.js
I had a similar problem with dynamic keys in a schema, and ended up going with a solution like this:
query lookupPersons {
persons {
personKeys
person3: personValue(key: "person3") {
id
name
}
}
}
returns:
{
data: {
persons: {
personKeys: ["person1", "person2", "person3"]
person3: {
id: "person3"
name: "Mike"
}
}
}
}
by shifting the complexity to the query, it simplifies the response shape.
the advantage compared to the JSON approach is it doesn't need any deserialisation from the client
Additional info for Venryx: a possible schema to fit my query looks like this:
type Person {
id: String
name: String
}
type PersonsResult {
personKeys: [String]
personValue(key: String): Person
}
type Query {
persons(area: String): PersonsResult
}
As an aside, if your data set for persons gets large enough, you're going to probably want pagination on personKeys as well, at which point, you should look into https://relay.dev/graphql/connections.htm
I'm a newbie to Prisma/GraphQL. I'm writing a simple ToDo app and using Apollo Server 2 and Prisma GraphQL for the backend. I want to convert my createdAt field from the data model to something more usable on the front-end, like a UTC date string. My thought was to convert the stored value, which is a DateTime.
My datamodel.prisma has the following for the ToDo type
type ToDo {
id: ID! #id
added: DateTime! #createdAt
body: String!
title: String
user: User!
completed: Boolean! #default(value: false)
}
The added field is a DataTime. But in my schema.js I am listing that field as a String
type ToDo {
id: ID!
title: String,
added: String!
body: String!
user: User!
completed: Boolean!
}
and I convert it in my resolver
ToDo: {
added: async (parent, args) => {
const d = new Date(parent.added)
return d.toUTCString()
}
Is this OK to do? That is, have different types for the same field in the datamodel and the schema? It seems to work OK, but I didn't know if I was opening myself up to trouble down the road, following this technique in other circumstances.
If so, the one thing I was curious about is why accessing parent.added in the ToDo.added resolver doesn't start some kind of 'infinite loop' -- that is, that when you access the parent.added field it doesn't look to the resolver to resolve that field, which accesses the parent.added field, and so on. (I guess it's just clever enough not to do that?)
I've only got limited experience with Prisma, but I understand you can view it as an extra back-end GraphQL layer interfacing between your own GraphQL server and your data (i.e. the database).
Your first model (datamodel.prisma) uses enhanced Prisma syntax and directives to accurately describe your data, and is used by the Prisma layer, while the second model uses standard GraphQL syntax to implement the same object as a valid, standard GraphQL type, and is used by your own back-end.
In effect, if you looked into it, you'd see the DateTime type used by Prisma is actually a String, but is likely used by Prisma to validate date & time formats, etc., so there is no fundamental discrepancy between both models. But even if there was a discrepancy, that would be up to you as you could use resolvers to override the data you get from Prisma before returning it from your own back-end.
In short, what I'm trying to say here is that you're dealing with 2 different GraphQL layers: Prisma and your own. And while Prisma's role is to accurately represent your data as it exists in the database and to provide you with a wide collection of CRUD methods to work with that data, your own layer can (and should) be tailored to your specific needs.
As for your resolver question, parent in this context will hold the object returned by the parent resolver. Imagine you have a getTodo query at the root Query level returning a single item of type ToDo. Let's assume you resolve this to Prisma's default action to retrieve a single ToDo. According to your datamodel.prisma file, this query will resolve into an object that has an added property (which will exist in your DB as the createdAt field, as specified by the #createdAt Prisma directive). So parent.added will hold that value.
What your added resolver does is transform that original piece of data by turning it into an actual Date object and then formatting it into a UTC string, which conforms to your schema.js file where the added field is of type String!.
I've the following structure in my schema:
type gn_Feature implements Some_Interface {
s_description: String
s_id: URL!
some_parent: gn_Feature
}
As you can see, each gn_Feature has an another linked gn_Feature object (the linking is handled elsewhere, it doesn't really matter). By my current understanding, you only need to define the resolvers for the return types, so my resolvers look like the following:
export const resolvers = Object.assign(
{},
{
DateTime: DateTime,
Date: DateTime,
Time: RegularExpression("Time", /^\d{2}:\d{2}(:\d{2})?$/),
URL,
Query: {
gn_Feature: gn_FeatureResolver
},
gn_Feature: gn_FeatureResolver
}
);
But, my queries fail with the following error if I don't explicitly define the resolver for the nested field, like so:
gn_Feature: {some_parent: gn_FeatureResolver}
Error:
"message": "Resolve function for \"gn_Feature.s_description\"
returned undefined"
My resolver function doesn't even get invoked for my nested object when I don't specify it like the above.
My backend consists of some voodoo transpiling of GraphQL queries into SparQL queries which return data back so I won't post the resolver code as I utilize one universal resolver for many fields. I'd like to avoid having to specify resolvers for each nested field as that's going be extremely tedious (I have dozens of types with dozens of fields). Any clarifications are welcome, as I'm completely baffled.
Example GraphQL query:
gn_Feature(some_field:"AD", last:2){
s_description,
s_id
some_parent{
s_description
}
}
When executing a query, only the value of any particular field is initially unknown and needs to be resolved... everything else, like the types, selection sets, etc. is already known. A resolver is a function called to resolve a specific field. In GraphQL.js, there are no resolvers for types.
Apollo muddies the waters a bit in this regard, since for convenience, the API for makeExecutableSchema allows you to define custom scalars by including them in the resolver map. Additionally, even though interfaces and unions don't have resolvers either, Apollo lets you use the resolver map to specify a __resolveType function for these abstract types as well. Apollo's docs actually define a resolver as "a function that connects schema fields and types to various backends." However, in the context of GraphQL in general, you should think of a resolvers as "a functions that resolves the value of a field".
So, given a type called gn_Feature and a field called some_parent, this is the correct way to structure your resolvers:
const resolvers = {
gn_Feature: {
some_parent: someResolverFunction
}
}
Also note that Query and Mutation are both types themselves, so if you have a query called gn_Feature, you are actually resolving a field called gn_Feature for the Query type.
I am very new to GraphQL and Apollo, and I don't understand what is wrong with the 'aliasEmail' field below. When I add this one to the query, I get this error message. When I remove it from the query, everything works perfectly.
It is well defined in 'types.graphql' and is just a simple string field.
index.js:2178 Unhandled (in react apollo:Apollo(withRouter(EmailSettingsContainer))) Error: Network
error: Error writing result to store for query:
query getCompanyForAliasEmailEditForm($companyId: ID) {
Company(id: $companyId) {
name
isTaxActive
telFixe
aliasEmail
telMobile
__typename
}
}
Store error: the application attempted to write an object with no
provided id but the store already contains an id of
Company:cje6xkcnxl83u01353a20p1t6 for this object. The selectionSet
that was trying to be written is:
Company(id: $companyId) {
name
isTaxActive
telFixe
aliasEmail
telMobile
__typename
}
It sounds like there's already another query being made elsewhere in the app that also returns the Company object and that query includes the id (or _id) field, while the query in this case does not. Apollo uses both the typename and id to generate the cache key for your query result (unless dataIdFromObject is used to modify this behavior), and so throws an error when it detects the above discrepancy. Try including the id field in your getCompanyForAliasEmailEditForm query.
Let's say my graphql server wants to fetch the following data as JSON where person3 and person5 are some id's:
"persons": {
"person3": {
"id": "person3",
"name": "Mike"
},
"person5": {
"id": "person5",
"name": "Lisa"
}
}
Question: How to create the schema type definition with apollo?
The keys person3 and person5 here are dynamically generated depending on my query (i.e. the area used in the query). So at another time I might get person1, person2, person3 returned.
As you see persons is not an Iterable, so the following won't work as a graphql type definition I did with apollo:
type Person {
id: String
name: String
}
type Query {
persons(area: String): [Person]
}
The keys in the persons object may always be different.
One solution of course would be to transform the incoming JSON data to use an array for persons, but is there no way to work with the data as such?
GraphQL relies on both the server and the client knowing ahead of time what fields are available available for each type. In some cases, the client can discover those fields (via introspection), but for the server, they always need to be known ahead of time. So to somehow dynamically generate those fields based on the returned data is not really possible.
You could utilize a custom JSON scalar (graphql-type-json module) and return that for your query:
type Query {
persons(area: String): JSON
}
By utilizing JSON, you bypass the requirement for the returned data to fit any specific structure, so you can send back whatever you want as long it's properly formatted JSON.
Of course, there's significant disadvantages in doing this. For example, you lose the safety net provided by the type(s) you would have previously used (literally any structure could be returned, and if you're returning the wrong one, you won't find out about it until the client tries to use it and fails). You also lose the ability to use resolvers for any fields within the returned data.
But... your funeral :)
As an aside, I would consider flattening out the data into an array (like you suggested in your question) before sending it back to the client. If you're writing the client code, and working with a dynamically-sized list of customers, chances are an array will be much easier to work with rather than an object keyed by id. If you're using React, for example, and displaying a component for each customer, you'll end up converting that object to an array to map it anyway. In designing your API, I would make client usability a higher consideration than avoiding additional processing of your data.
You can write your own GraphQLScalarType and precisely describe your object and your dynamic keys, what you allow and what you do not allow or transform.
See https://graphql.org/graphql-js/type/#graphqlscalartype
You can have a look at taion/graphql-type-json where he creates a Scalar that allows and transforms any kind of content:
https://github.com/taion/graphql-type-json/blob/master/src/index.js
I had a similar problem with dynamic keys in a schema, and ended up going with a solution like this:
query lookupPersons {
persons {
personKeys
person3: personValue(key: "person3") {
id
name
}
}
}
returns:
{
data: {
persons: {
personKeys: ["person1", "person2", "person3"]
person3: {
id: "person3"
name: "Mike"
}
}
}
}
by shifting the complexity to the query, it simplifies the response shape.
the advantage compared to the JSON approach is it doesn't need any deserialisation from the client
Additional info for Venryx: a possible schema to fit my query looks like this:
type Person {
id: String
name: String
}
type PersonsResult {
personKeys: [String]
personValue(key: String): Person
}
type Query {
persons(area: String): PersonsResult
}
As an aside, if your data set for persons gets large enough, you're going to probably want pagination on personKeys as well, at which point, you should look into https://relay.dev/graphql/connections.htm