Transforming a java object into a GraphQL object in order to return a response

Question

I'm using the GraphQL Java library in a project and I'm trying to return the desired result in a custom DataFetcher. How exactly do I construct the response object? As far as I know, I'm not expected to just write the response string in the format. There should be a better way to assign values to the requested fields.

public Object get(DataFetchingEnvironment environment) {
    Integer id = environment.getArgument("id");
    //Process information and get results

    //What should the return object be?                             
    return result;
}

Answer 1

The return value from get() should be the object that is the result of evaluating that particular operation.

For example, given:

  private static GraphQLFieldDefinition allTodoes=
    GraphQLFieldDefinition
      .newFieldDefinition()
      .name("allTodoes")
      .type(new GraphQLList(todo))
      .argument(skip)
      .argument(take)
      .dataFetcher(fetcher)
      .build();

then fetcher needs to return a List of objects that satisfy the contract of whatever the GraphQLObjectType for todo is.

In my case, I am replicating this schema, so I can return an ArrayList of ToDo objects:

  private static class ToDo {
    public int id;
    public String text;
    public boolean complete;

    ToDo(int id, String text, boolean complete) {
      this.id=id;
      this.text=text;
      this.complete=complete;
    }
  }

Here is the entire schema, Java-style:

/***
 Copyright (c) 2016 CommonsWare, LLC

 Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may
 not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain
 a copy of the License at http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

 Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 limitations under the License.
 */

package com.commonsware.agql.client.local;

import android.util.Log;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import graphql.Scalars;
import graphql.schema.DataFetcher;
import graphql.schema.DataFetchingEnvironment;
import graphql.schema.GraphQLArgument;
import graphql.schema.GraphQLFieldDefinition;
import graphql.schema.GraphQLList;
import graphql.schema.GraphQLObjectType;
import graphql.schema.GraphQLSchema;

// schema inspired by https://gist.github.com/gsans/d857b0951077bdbbabd968e0431d97fe

public class TestSchema {
  private static class ToDo {
    public int id;
    public String text;
    public boolean complete;

    ToDo(int id, String text, boolean complete) {
      this.id=id;
      this.text=text;
      this.complete=complete;
    }
  }

  private static ArrayList<ToDo> TODOES=new ArrayList<>();

  static {
    TODOES.add(new ToDo(123, "get this sample working", false));
    TODOES.add(new ToDo(4567, "add more test cases", false));
    TODOES.add(new ToDo(89012, "add more documentation", false));
    TODOES.add(new ToDo(345678, "add more todoes", false));
  }

  private static GraphQLFieldDefinition id=
    GraphQLFieldDefinition
      .newFieldDefinition()
      .name("id")
      .description("unique identifier")
      .type(Scalars.GraphQLInt)
      .build();

  private static GraphQLFieldDefinition text=
    GraphQLFieldDefinition
      .newFieldDefinition()
      .name("text")
      .description("what is to be done")
      .type(Scalars.GraphQLString)
      .build();

  private static GraphQLFieldDefinition complete=
    GraphQLFieldDefinition
      .newFieldDefinition()
      .name("complete")
      .description("are we done yet?")
      .type(Scalars.GraphQLBoolean)
      .build();

  private static GraphQLObjectType todo=
    GraphQLObjectType.newObject()
      .name("Todo")
      .description("Something to be done")
      .field(id)
      .field(text)
      .field(complete)
      .build();

  private static GraphQLArgument skip=
    GraphQLArgument
      .newArgument()
      .name("skip")
      .description("return starting with this index")
      .type(Scalars.GraphQLInt)
      .build();

  private static GraphQLArgument take=
    GraphQLArgument
      .newArgument()
      .name("take")
      .description("return this number of todoes")
      .type(Scalars.GraphQLInt)
      .build();

  private static DataFetcher fetcher=new DataFetcher() {
    @Override
    public Object get(DataFetchingEnvironment env) {
      int startIndex=0;
      int endIndex=TODOES.size()-1;
      List<ToDo> result=null;

      try {
        if (env.containsArgument("skip")) {
          Integer skip=env.getArgument("skip");

          if (skip!=null) {
            startIndex=skip.intValue();
          }
        }

        if (env.containsArgument("take")) {
          Integer take=env.getArgument("take");

          if (take!=null) {
            endIndex=startIndex+take;
          }
        }

        result=TODOES.subList(startIndex, endIndex);
      }
      catch (Exception e) {
        Log.e(getClass().getSimpleName(), "Exception processing request", e);
        // um, how do I get this error into result?
      }

      return(result);
    }
  };

  private static GraphQLFieldDefinition allTodoes=
    GraphQLFieldDefinition
      .newFieldDefinition()
      .name("allTodoes")
      .type(new GraphQLList(todo))
      .argument(skip)
      .argument(take)
      .dataFetcher(fetcher)
      .build();

  private static GraphQLObjectType rootQuery=
    GraphQLObjectType
      .newObject()
      .name("rootQuery")
      .field(allTodoes)
      .build();

  public static GraphQLSchema schema=
    GraphQLSchema.newSchema().query(rootQuery).build();
}

The default for a DataFetcher is to use getters or public fields to resolve the values, though there are options in their library to do something else IIRC.

As you will see from the one comment, I haven't gotten around to figuring out how to handle errors, though I'm sure there's an option for that.