Description
Brief Description:
This feature is just syntax sugar on top of existing features of GraphQL API. The dot-notation projection proposal is something like:
x.y.z
Which is expanded to:
x {
y {
z
}
}
The separator for the projection could be another token, such as :: (for instance, x::y::z), but the goal here is to avoid too much typing and spare efforts.
Rationale/why:
On large projects made of diverse relations, our queries & mutation payloads become quite complex. Indentation levels become deep, which hinders the source code reading. This syntax also favours and simplifies auto-complete toolings.
Additional comments:
This feature is only useful for many-to-one relationships. On either one-to-many or many-to-many, we'll often resort to some kind of pagination (on most times, Relay/cursor-based). Nevertheless, the syntax can be extended to accept parameters on the last field of the chain of projections, for instance:
x.y.z(a: 1, b: 2, c: 3) {
field1
field2
# etc...
}
Being expanded to:
x {
y {
z(a: 1, b: 2, c: 3) {
field1
field2
# etc...
}
}
}
Bad use cases:
The following code below is a counter-argument for this proposal:
hero(id: "vaan") {
mainWeapon.strength
mainWeapon.price
mainWeapon.description
}
Where a better and clean approach would just be:
hero(id: "vaan") {
mainWeapon {
strength
price
description
}
}
Or, who knows:
hero(id: "vaan").mainWeapon {
strength
price
description
}
The non-last parametrized fields are only "sound" on single-field projections, otherwise, a client could do that and thus break expansion:
hero(id: "vaan").mainWeapon {
strength
price
description
}
hero(id: "balthier").shield {
price
defense
}
Resulting in the following unsound/incorrect expansion:
hero(id: "vaan") {
mainWeapon {
strength
price
description
}
}
hero(id: "balthier") {
shield {
price
defense
}
}
Compatibility breaking:
As far I'm concerned, there's no one.
Cost analysis:
A new syntax is always a burden for compiler/parser writers. Despite that, because the syntax sugar expansion property, this syntax could be expanded before the parsing phase, and therefore, reuse the existing parsing/grammar rules already implemented.
I would like to hear opinions from you guys. Thanks in advance. 🐈