Enhancements

[orefalo]

Nice implementation - congrats
Surprised to see federation built in

Would be nice to see:

1. Support for SDL format - https://github.com/orefalo/graphql-shorthand-parser
2. Support for @annotations

With basic annotations (http proxy, oauth validation, structure getter) you can support 70-80% of the typical graphql use cases.

[sunli829]

Do you want to generate some framework code through GraphQL Schema DSL?

[orefalo]

Hi, tks for the quick reply.
That could work. the point is, most of my implementations today are in JS. I decided to use the DSL notation to abstract the graphQL implementation. So yes a code generator would definitely help and be very useful to a broader audience.

[sunli829]

I thought about it, in fact, rust has another library to do this, https://github.com/davidpdrsn/juniper-from-schema, but it does not support async-graphql. The biggest problem is that this type of code generation will create new types, but these types of IDEs do not recognize them, so they cannot be automatically completed. I think this increases the difficulty of writing code, so I am still considering whether I really need to implement this. 😁

[phated]

Instead of using macros to generate the rust code, there could be a command line tool that outputs the rust code (like diesel-cli does for the database). I believe the new parser work that @sunli829 did could be used to support that tool.

[nicolaiunrein]

You mean a tool that - given a GQL Schema and access to your business logic - generates some boilerplate for your api before compilation?

[sunli829]

@phated I understand what you mean, this way can really solve the problem that ide can't recognize the type. After I am busy with the work at hand, I will study the feasibility. 😁

[orefalo]

Thank you. For the context. I built a GraphQL UI designer - it generates SDL code. Ideally would love to have it generate RUST code for the same model. Which brings me to two questions:

1. Why can't rust read the SDL like javascript does? Is there any limitations in the language?
2. Well, a generator can be written in any language - if you highlight the patterns, I could even write it in JS. Remember I already have the SDL parser.
   Cheers

[sunli829]

What I understand is that you have a tool that can automatically generate GraphQL code for js, including the implementation of solving functions. Now you want to generate rust?

[sunli829]

GraphQL UI designer contains the definition of the data source, so you can generate the entire code, similar to hasura? 😁

[orefalo]

The tool goes from UI UML like models -> GraphQL SDL

from there:
hasura takes that SDL and creates a persistent implementation on the database
my own JS graphql server (which has nothing special), takes the SDL and creates a volatile implementation.

Now, I would love to see you implementation read the SDL, but it doesn't at this point.
Therefore two options:

1. have you implement the functionality - may take some time
2. create a code generator (you mentioned it) - the point here is that this generator doesn't necessarily have to be built in rust. so using some of the opensource projects I already build, we could quickly implement a "prototype"

[sunli829]

I have seen the code of graphql-shorthand-parser, if I have not misunderstood, it is a GraphQL Schema parser, and your purpose is to be able to use this parser result (AST) to generate rust code, is that true? 😁

[sunli829]

If I understand correctly above, there is a small problem here. If I hope that the tools from SDL to Rust code can be used as rust macros in the future, js cannot do this.

[sunli829]

Sorry, I just understood the meaning of SDL, which is Schema Definition Language.

[orefalo]

No worries, I think they call it IDL but anyways.. glad you got it

On my side, I am really not familiar with Rust... what are macros?

[sunli829]

There is a syntax in javascript, @ annotations, also in python and java. The rust macro can do the same thing, the difference is that it is completed at compile time.

[orefalo]

I see. that's actually one of the "missing" features I identified up on the thread. Glad it's there, then.
Back to our discussion. in your opinion, is it worth supporting SDL in your Rust implementation?

[sunli829]

I think it's worth it. After all, some developers like "Schema first", so I'm already thinking about how to implement this. 😁

[sunli829]

And when I started to do this, I thought I would finish it soon.

[orefalo]

When/if you implement it..

I found this library - https://github.com/kevinmehall/rust-peg
Here are my grammar files - https://github.com/orefalo/graphql-shorthand-parser/tree/master/src

Cheers

[sunli829]

Thank you very much. 🍺

[kellpossible]

Alternatively, some way to export the Schema in the schema format at build time would be nice.

[sunli829]

Export sdl for the client?

[kellpossible]

Yes, I haven't used graphql before, this is my first time, so forgive me if I'm missing something, I was thinking exporting the schema definition schema.graphql to be consumed by the client at build time. That way there is still only a single definition. Perhaps this would be easier to do than implementing an SDL parser, and generating the schema for the server from that?

[phated]

@kellpossible the common practice is just to use a tool against your development environment and check in the schema.graphql. I use https://www.npmjs.com/package/graphql-cli/v/3.0.14 (make sure to use the older version because the new one removed features)

[sunli829]

@kellpossible the common practice is just to use a tool against your development environment and check in the schema.graphql. I use https://www.npmjs.com/package/graphql-cli/v/3.0.14 (make sure to use the older version because the new one removed features)

I think it's better that way.

[kellpossible]

@phated thanks ooh okay that does sound good, so the idea is that using the CLI tool you can pull the schema from the graphql server/api and updates the schema file that way? A pity it is an older version.

[Weasy666]

So...is it currently possible to use async-graphql with the schema first approach? I couldn't find a way to parse and use a schema file.

[sunli829]

So...is it currently possible to use async-graphql with the schema first approach? I couldn't find a way to parse and use a schema file.

https://docs.rs/crate/codegen-for-async-graphql/0.2.6

I haven't used this, but it seems to be schema first.

[Weasy666]

Ah...ok, so i have to use an external lib for that. Thanks for the info.

Yes, that is schema first. Just for others reading this, it is working, but has a few caveats. It currently is not able to generate code for a required array with required elements, i.e. [Branch!]! (see Issue #5).