#WPGraphQL

Website • Docs

GraphQL API for WordPress.

=============

##Installing Install and activate WPGraphQL like any WP Plugin, then flush your permalinks.

##Overview This plugin brings the power of GraphQL to WordPress.

GraphQL is a query language spec that was open sourced by Facebook® in 2015, and has been used in production by Facebook® since 2012.

GraphQL has some similarities to REST in that it exposes an HTTP endpoint where requests can be sent and a JSON response is returned. However, where REST has a different endpoint per resource, GraphQL has just a single endpoint and the data returned isn't implicit, but rather explicit and matches the shape of the request.

A REST API is implicit, meaning that the data coming back from an endpoint is implied. An endpoint such as /posts/ implies that the data I will retrieve is data related to Post objects, but beyond that it's hard to know exactly what will be returned. It might be more data than I need or might not be the data I need at all.

GraphQL is explicit, meaning that you ask for the data you want and you get the data back in the same shape that it was asked for.

Additionally, where REST requires multiple HTTP requests for related data, GraphQL allows related data to be queried and retrieved in a single request, and again, in the same shape of the request without any worry of over or under-fetching data.

GraphQL also provides rich introspection, allowing for queries to be run to find out details about the Schema, which is how powerful dev tools, such as GraphiQl have been able to be created.

GraphiQL API Explorer

GraphiQL is a fantastic GraphQL API Explorer / IDE. There are various versions of GraphiQL that you can find, including a Chrome Extension but my recommendation is the GraphiQL desktop app below:

• Download the GraphiQL Desktop App

  • Once the app is downloaded and installed, open the App.
  • Set the GraphQL Endpoint to http://yoursite.com/graphql
  • You should now be able to browse the GraphQL Schema via the "Docs" explorer at the top right.
  • On the left side, you can execute GraphQL Queries
  

##Example Queries Here's some example queries to get you going with experimenting. You can simply copy and paste these into the GraphiQL query inspector and you'll receive a response of data in the same shape as the request. There's also a video walkthrough of GraphQL queries using WPGraphQL here: https://www.wpgraphql.com/2017/02/17/intro-to-wpgraphql-queries/

####Get a list of posts:

{
    posts{
        edges{
            node{
                id
                title
                link
                slug
                date
            }
        }
    }
}

####Get a list of category terms:

{
	categories{
    edges{
      node{
        id
        name
        link
        slug
      }
    }
  }
}

####Get a lost of posts, with the categories it's attached to:

{
  posts {
    edges {
      node {
        id
        title
        link
        slug
        date
        categories {
          edges {
            node {
              id
              link
              slug
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

##Unit Testing To run unit tests during development, you'll first need a testing database that you'd like to use.

Open the command line and navigate to the plugin's directory. From within the plugin directory, run the following commands to install the test suite, filling in the parameters appropriately to link to an existing test database or to create a new test database:

composer install

bin/install-wp-tests.sh <db-name> <db-user> <db-pass> [db-host] [wp-version] [skip-database-creation]

NOTE: You'll want the test database to be a true test database, not a database with valuable, existing information, as the tests will create new data and clear out data, and you don't want to cause issues with a database you're actually using for projects.

Shout Outs

This plugin brings the power of GraphQL (http://graphql.org/) to WordPress.

This plugin is based on the hard work of Jason Bahl and Ryan Kanner of Digital First Media (https://github.com/dfmedia), and Edwin Cromley of BE-Webdesign (https://github.com/BE-Webdesign).

The plugin is built on top of the graphql-php library by Webonyx (https://github.com/webonyx/graphql-php) and makes use of the graphql-relay-php library by Ivome (https://github.com/ivome/graphql-relay-php/)

Special thanks to Digital First Media (http://digitalfirstmedia.com) for allocating development resources to push the project forward.

Some of the concepts and code are based on the WordPress Rest API. Much love to the folks (https://github.com/orgs/WP-API/people) that put their blood, sweat and tears into the WP-API project, as it's been huge in moving WordPress forward as a platform and helped inspire and direct the development of WPGraphQL.

Much love to Facebook® for open sourcing the GraphQL spec (https://facebook.github.io/graphql/), the amazing GraphiQL dev tools (https://github.com/graphql/graphiql), and maintaining the JavaScript GraphQL reference implementation (https://github.com/graphql/graphql-js)

Much love to Apollo (Meteor Development Group) for their work on driving GraphQL forward and providing a lot of insight into how to design GraphQL schemas, etc. Check them out: http://www.apollodata.com/