Overview

GraphQL consists of two main parts:

  • A server-side schema that defines the available queries and types of data that may be returned.
  • A client query language that allows the client to specify what query to execute, and what data to return.

The GraphQL specification goes into detail about the format of the client query language, and the expected behavior of the server.

This library, Lacinia, is an implementation of the key component of the server, in idiomatic Clojure.

Schema

The GraphQL specification includes a language to define the server-side schema; the type keyword is used to introduce a new kind of object.

In Lacinia, the schema is Clojure data: a map of keys and values; top level keys indicate the type of data being defined:’

{:enums
 {:Episode
  {:description "The episodes of the original Star Wars trilogy."
   :values [:NEWHOPE :EMPIRE :JEDI]}}

 :interfaces
 {:Character
  {:fields {:id {:type String}
            :name {:type String}
            :appearsIn {:type (list :Episode)}
            :friends {:type (list :Character)}}}}

 :objects
 {:Droid
  {:implements [:Character]
   :fields {:id {:type String}
            :name {:type String}
            :appearsIn {:type (list :Episode)}
            :friends {:type (list :Character)
                      :resolve :friends}
            :primaryFunction {:type (list String)}}}

  :Human
  {:implements [:Character]
   :fields {:id {:type String}
            :name {:type String}
            :appearsIn {:type (list :Episode)}
            :friends {:type (list :Character)}
            :home_planet {:type String}}}

  :Query
  {:fields
   {:hero {:type (non-null :Character)
           :args {:episode {:type :Episode}}}

    :human {:type (non-null :Human)
            :args {:id {:type String
                        :default-value "1001"}}}

    :droid {:type :Droid
            :args {:id {:type String
                        :default-value "2001"}}}}}}}

Here, we are defining Human and Droid objects. These have a lot in common, so we define a shared Character interface.

But how to access that data? That’s accomplished using one of three queries:

  • hero
  • human
  • droid

In this example, each query returns a single instance of the matching object. Often, a query will return a list of matching objects.

Compiling the Schema

The schema defines the shape of the data that can be queried, but leaves out where that data comes from. Unlike an object/relational mapping layer, where we might discuss database tables and rows, GraphQL (and by extension, Lacinia) has no idea where the data comes from.

That’s the realm of the field resolver function. Since EDN files are just data, we simply attach the actual functions after the EDN data is read into memory.

The schema starts as a data structure, we need to add in the field resolvers and then compile the result.

(ns org.example.schema
  (:require
    [clojure.edn :as edn]
    [clojure.java.io :as io]
    [com.walmartlabs.lacinia.schema :as schema]
    [com.walmartlabs.lacinia.util :as util]
    [org.example.db :as db]))

(defn star-wars-schema
  []
  (-> (io/resource "star-wars-schema.edn")
      slurp
      edn/read-string
      (util/inject-resolvers {:Query/hero db/resolve-hero
                              :Query/human db/resolve-human
                              :Query/droid db/resolve-droid
                              :Human/friends db/resolve-friends
                              :Droid/friends db/resolve-friends})
      schema/compile))

The com.walmartlabs.lacinia.util/inject-resolvers function identifies objects and fields within those objects, and adds the resolver function. With those functions in place, the schema can be compiled for execution.

Compilation performs a number of checks, applies defaults, merges in introspection data about the schema, and performs a number of other operations to ready the schema for use. The structure passed into compile is quite complex, so it is always validated using clojure.spec.

Parsing GraphQL IDL Schemas

Lacinia also offers support for parsing schemas defined in the GraphQL Interface Definition Language and tranforming them into the Lacinia schema data structure.

See GraphQL IDL Schema Parsing for details.

Executing Queries

With that in place, we can now execute queries.

(require
  '[com.walmartlabs.lacinia :refer [execute]]
  '[org.example.schema :refer [star-wars-schema]])

(def compiled-schema (star-wars-schema))

(execute compiled-schema
  "query { human(id: \"1001\") { name }}"
  nil nil)
=> {:data {:human #ordered/map([:name "Darth Vader"])}}

The query string is parsed and matched against the queries defined in the schema.

The two nils are variables to be used executing the query, and an application context.

In GraphQL, queries can pass arguments (such as id) and queries identify exactly which fields of the matching objects are to be returned. This query can be stated as just provide the name of the human with id ‘1001’.

This is a successful query, it returns a result map [2] with a :data key. A failed query would return a map with an :errors key. A query can even be partially successful, returning as much data as it can, but also errors.

Inside :data is a key corresponding to the query, :human, whose value is the single matching human. Other queries might return a list of matches. Since we requested just a slice of a full human object, just the human’s name, the map has just a single :name key.

[1]This shouldn’t be strictly necessary (JSON and EDN don’t normally care about key order, and keys can appear in arbitrary order), but having consistent ordering makes writing tests involving GraphQL queries easier: you can typically check the textual, not parsed, version of the result map directly against an expected string value.
[2]In GraphQL’s specification, this is referred to as the “response”; in practice, this result data forms the body of a response map (when using Ring or Pedestal). Lacinia uses the terms result map or result data to keep these ideas distinct.