CODEWITHSUNDEEP
restgraphql
quarks
quarks

Reputation: 35282

Compound queries

I have a RESTful service that accepts a custom query, like this:

/entities/User?actions=

{
  "$link": {
    "entityType": "Manager",
    "entity": {
      "name": "John Smith"
    },
    "linkName": "managers",
    "backLinkName": "account",
    "$set": {
      "propertyName": "aclWrite",
      "propertyValue": {
        "$ref": {
          "propertyName": "entityId"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Which simply means:

I created this query structure because I can't find any suitable Query language that can seem to support such action/procedure.

The question here is are there any Query language that can support such compound action/procedure or can GraphQL handle such?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 36

Answers (1)

Daniel Rearden
Daniel Rearden

Reputation: 84707

As a specification, GraphQL doesn't care what fields your schema defines, what arguments those fields take or what your field resolvers do with those arguments. So it's perfectly feasible to design a schema that would let the client compose an equivalent mutation:

mutation {
  link(
    entityType: "Manager"
    entity: {
      name: "John Smith"
    }
    linkName: "managers"
    backLinkName: "account"
    set: {
      propertyName: "aclWrite"
      propertyValue: {
        ref: {
          propertyName: "entityId"
        }
      }      
    }
  ) {
    # some fields here to return in the response
  }
}

GraphQL does not support references to other nodes inside the same query, so you would still probably want a single mutation whose input mirrored your existing API. That said, using GraphQL for this may still be preferable because of request validation, which is all the more important with complex requests like this. Having an IDE like GraphiQL or GraphQL Playground that lets you write your queries using autocomplete is a big plus too.

Upvotes: 2

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