CODEWITHSUNDEEP
githubgithub-apigithub-graphql
bart
bart

Reputation: 15298

In Github API, how can one distinguish a user from an organisation?

Take the following Github URL: https://github.com/google

How can I determine whether google is a user or an organization?

I need to know to this for querying Github's graphql API in the correct way.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 83

Answers (2)

kbridge4096
kbridge4096

Reputation: 941

Query repositoryOwner. Use its __typename.

Query:

query ($login: String!) {
  repositoryOwner(login: $login) {
    __typename
  }
}

Variables:

{"login": "google"}

{"login": "torvalds"}

Which yields

{
  "data": {
    "repositoryOwner": {
      "__typename": "Organization"
    }
  }
}

{
  "data": {
    "repositoryOwner": {
      "__typename": "User"
    }
  }
}

If you are looking for some common properties, and don't care whether the subject is a user or an organization. You can try something like:

query ($login: String!) {
  repositoryOwner(login: $login) {
    avatarUrl
  }
}

You may want to use another common ancestor interface for properties that repositoryOwner lacks:

query ($login: String!) {
  repositoryOwner(login: $login) {
    ... on ProfileOwner {
      name
    }
  }
}

Even dispatch to different fields depending on the concrete object type: (credited to Bertrand Martel's another answer)

query ($login: String!) {
  repositoryOwner(login: $login) {    
    ... on User {
      bio
    }
    ... on Organization {
      description
    }
  }
}

The all-in-one combination,

query ($login: String!) {
  repositoryOwner(login: $login) {
    avatarUrl
    
    ... on ProfileOwner {
      name
    }
    
    ... on User {
      bio
    }
    ... on Organization {
      description
    }
  }
}

providing the following variables,

{"login": "microsoft"}

{"login": "munificent"}

yields:

{
  "data": {
    "repositoryOwner": {
      "avatarUrl": "https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/6154722?v=4",
      "name": "Microsoft",
      "description": "Open source projects and samples from Microsoft"
    }
  }
}

{
  "data": {
    "repositoryOwner": {
      "avatarUrl": "https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/46275?v=4",
      "name": "Bob Nystrom",
      "bio": "Programming language developer, ex-game developer, UI nerd, author of \"Game Programming Patterns\" and \"Crafting Interpreters\"."
    }
  }
}

Upvotes: 0

Bertrand Martel
Bertrand Martel

Reputation: 45513

If you have the login (username) of the user/group, you can use organization & user to search respectively an organization & a user and check which of the 2 fields is not null : 

{
  org: organization(login: "google") {
    name
    members {
      totalCount
    }
  }
  user: user(login: "google") {
    name
    login
  }
}

which gives : 

{
  "data": {
    "org": {
      "name": "Google",
      "members": {
        "totalCount": 1677
      }
    },
    "user": null
  }
}

or using a variable for login input, try it in the explorer

For the Rest API v3, it's much simpler since it doesn't distinguish the user from the organization : https://developer.github.com/v3/users :

curl -s 'https://api.github.com/users/google' | jq -r '.type'

Organization

curl -s 'https://api.github.com/users/torvalds' | jq -r '.type'

User

Upvotes: 1

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