scalars.md

linkTitle	title	description	menu
Custom Scalars	Using custom graphql types in golang	Defining custom GraphQL scalar types using gqlgen	main parent reference

There are two different ways to implement scalars in gqlgen, depending on your need.

With user defined types

For user defined types you can implement the graphql.Marshal and graphql.Unmarshal interfaces and they will be called.

package mypkg

import (
	"fmt"
	"io"
	"strings"
)

type YesNo bool

// UnmarshalGQL implements the graphql.Marshaler interface
func (y *YesNo) UnmarshalGQL(v interface{}) error {
	yes, ok := v.(string)
	if !ok {
		return fmt.Errorf("points must be strings")
	}

	if yes == "yes" {
		*y = true
	} else {
		*y = false
	}
	return nil
}

// MarshalGQL implements the graphql.Marshaler interface
func (y YesNo) MarshalGQL(w io.Writer) {
	if y {
		w.Write([]byte(`"yes"`))
	} else {
		w.Write([]byte(`"no"`))
	}
}

and then in .gqlgen.yml point to the name without the Marshal|Unmarshal in front:

models:
  YesNo:
    model: github.com/me/mypkg.YesNo

Custom scalars for types you don't control

Sometimes you cant add methods to a type because its in another repo, part of the standard library (eg string or time.Time). To do this we can build an external marshaler:

package mypkg

import (
	"fmt"
	"io"
	"strings"
	
	"github.com/99designs/gqlgen/graphql"
)


func MarshalMyCustomBooleanScalar(b bool) graphql.Marshaler {
	return graphql.WriterFunc(func(w io.Writer) {
		if b {
			w.Write([]byte("true"))
		} else {
			w.Write([]byte("false"))
		}
	})
}

func UnmarshalMyCustomBooleanScalar(v interface{}) (bool, error) {
	switch v := v.(type) {
	case string:
		return "true" == strings.ToLower(v), nil
	case int:
		return v != 0, nil
	case bool:
		return v, nil
	default:
		return false, fmt.Errorf("%T is not a bool", v)
	}
}

and then in .gqlgen.yml point to the name without the Marshal|Unmarshal in front:

models:
  MyCustomBooleanScalar:
    model: github.com/me/mypkg.MyCustomBooleanScalar

see the example/scalars package for more examples.