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Tips & Tricks | Miscellaneous useful tips for working with your GraphQL schema |
Tips & Tricks
[alert] You are viewing docs for a pre-release version of silverstripe/graphql (4.x). Help us improve it by joining #graphql on the Community Slack, and report any issues at github.com/silverstripe/silverstripe-graphql. Docs for the current stable version (3.x) can be found here [/alert]
Getting the type name for a model class
Often times, you'll need to know the name of the type given a class name. There's a bit of context to this.
Getting the type name at build time
If you need to know the name of the type during the build, e.g. creating the name of an operation, field, query, etc,
you should use the Build::requireActiveBuild()
accessor. This will get you the schema that is currently being built,
and throw if no build is active. A more tolerant method is getActiveBuild()
which will return null if no schema
is being built.
Build::requireActiveBuild()->findOrMakeModel($className)->getName();
Getting the type name from within your app
If you need the type name during normal execution of your app, e.g. to display in your UI, you can rely on the cached typenames, which are persisted alongside your generated schema code.
Schema::create('default')->getTypeNameForClass($className);
Why is there a difference?
It is expensive to load all of the schema config. The getTypeNameForClass
function avoids the need to
load the config, and reads directly from the cache. To be clear, the following is functionally equivalent,
but slow:
Schema::create('default')
->loadFromConfig()
->findOrMakeModel($className)
->getName();
Persisting queries
A common pattern in GraphQL APIs is to store queries on the server by an identifier. This helps save on bandwidth, as the client need not put a fully expressed query in the request body, but rather a simple identifier. Also, it allows you to whitelist only specific query IDs, and block all other ad-hoc, potentially malicious queries, which adds an extra layer of security to your API, particularly if it's public.
To implement persisted queries, you need an implementation of the
SilverStripe\GraphQL\PersistedQuery\PersistedQueryMappingProvider
interface. By default, three are provided,
which cover most use cases:
FileProvider
: Store your queries in a flat JSON file on the local filesystem.HTTPProvider
: Store your queries on a remote server and reference a JSON file by URL.JSONStringProvider
: Store your queries as hardcoded JSON
Configuring query mapping providers
All of these implementations can be configured through Injector
.
[notice]
Note that each schema gets its own set of persisted queries. In these examples, we're using the default
schema.
[/notice]
FileProvider
SilverStripe\Core\Injector\Injector:
SilverStripe\GraphQL\PersistedQuery\PersistedQueryMappingProvider:
class: SilverStripe\GraphQL\PersistedQuery\FileProvider
properties:
schemaMapping:
default: '/var/www/project/query-mapping.json'
A flat file in the path /var/www/project/query-mapping.json
should contain something like:
{"someUniqueID":"query{validateToken{Valid Message Code}}"}
[notice] The file path must be absolute. [/notice]
HTTPProvider
SilverStripe\Core\Injector\Injector:
SilverStripe\GraphQL\PersistedQuery\PersistedQueryMappingProvider:
class: SilverStripe\GraphQL\PersistedQuery\HTTPProvider
properties:
schemaMapping:
default: 'http://example.com/myqueries.json'
A flat file at the URL http://example.com/myqueries.json
should contain something like:
{"someUniqueID":"query{readMembers{Name+Email}}"}
JSONStringProvider
SilverStripe\Core\Injector\Injector:
SilverStripe\GraphQL\PersistedQuery\PersistedQueryMappingProvider:
class: SilverStripe\GraphQL\PersistedQuery\HTTPProvider
properties:
schemaMapping:
default: '{"myMutation":"mutation{createComment($comment:String!){Comment}}"}'
The queries are hardcoded into the configuration.
Requesting queries by identifier
To access a persisted query, simply pass an id
parameter in the request in lieu of query
.
GET http://example.com/graphql?id=someID
[notice]
Note that if you pass query
along with id
, an exception will be thrown.
[/notice]
Query caching (Caution: EXPERIMENTAL)
The QueryCachingMiddleware
class is an experimental cache layer that persists the results of a GraphQL
query to limit unnecessary calls to the database. The query cache is automatically expired when any
DataObject that it relies on is modified. The entire cache will be discarded on ?flush
requests.
To implement query caching, add the middleware to your QueryHandlerInterface
SilverStripe\Core\Injector\Injector:
SilverStripe\GraphQL\QueryHandler\QueryHandlerInterface.default:
class: SilverStripe\GraphQL\QueryHandler\QueryHandler
properties:
Middlewares:
cache: '%$SilverStripe\GraphQL\Middleware\QueryCachingMiddleware'
And you will also need to apply an extension to all DataObjects:
SilverStripe\ORM\DataObject:
extensions:
- SilverStripe\GraphQL\Extensions\QueryRecorderExtension
[warning] This feature is experimental, and has not been thoroughly evaluated for security. Use at your own risk. [/warning]
Schema introspection
Some GraphQL clients such as Apollo require some level of introspection
into the schema. While introspection is part of the GraphQL spec,
this module provides a limited API for fetching it via non-graphql endpoints. By default, the graphql/
controller provides a types
action that will return the type schema (serialised as JSON) dynamically.
GET http://example.com/graphql/types
{
"data":{
"__schema":{
"types":[
{
"kind":"OBJECT",
"name":"Query",
"possibleTypes":null
}
// etc ...
]
}
}
As your schema grows, introspecting it dynamically may have a performance hit. Alternatively,
if you have the silverstripe/assets
module installed (as it is in the default SilverStripe installation),
GraphQL can cache your schema as a flat file in the assets/
directory. To enable this, simply
set the cache_types_in_filesystem
setting to true
on SilverStripe\GraphQL\Controller
. Once enabled,
a types.graphql
file will be written to your assets/
directory on flush
.
When cache_types_in_filesystem
is enabled, it is recommended that you remove the extension that
provides the dynamic introspection endpoint.
use SilverStripe\GraphQL\Controller;
use SilverStripe\GraphQL\Extensions\IntrospectionProvider;
Controller::remove_extension(IntrospectionProvider::class);