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GraphQL Query Api for JPA Entity Models

GraphQL JPA Query library uses JPA specification to derive and build GraphQL Apis using GraphQL Java for your JPA Entity Java Classes. It provides a powerfull JPA Query Schema Builder to generate GraphQL Schema using JPA EntityManager Api and instruments GraphQL Schema with JPA Query Data Fetchers that transform GraphQL queries into JPA queries on the fly.

GraphQL is a query language for Web APIs implemented by GraphQL Java graphql-java runtime for fulfilling those queries with your existing data. GraphQL provides a complete and understandable description of the data in your API, gives clients the power to ask for exactly what they need and nothing more, makes it easier to evolve APIs over time, and enables powerful developer tools.

Your applications can now use GraphQL queries that smoothly follow references between JPA entities with flexible type safe criteria expressions and user-friendly SQL query syntax semantics i.e. query by page, where criteria expressions, select, order by etc.

While typical REST APIs require loading from multiple URLs, GraphQL APIs get all the data your app needs in a single request. Apps using GraphQL can be quick even on slow mobile network connections.

JPA (Java Persistence Annotation) is Java's standard solution to bridge the gap between object-oriented domain models and relational database systems.

GraphQL JPA Query creates a uniform query API for your applications without being limited by a single data source. You can use it with multiple JPA compliant databases by instrumenting a separate EntityManager for each DataSource and expose a single GraphQL Query Apis for your Web application domain using Spring Boot Auto Configuration magic.

Features

• Code first generation of GraphQL schema from JPA entities
• Customize GraphQL schema using annotations on JPA entities
• Execute GraphQL queries with dynamic SQL criteria expressions via JPA Criteria Apis
• Paginate GraphQL query results
• Support GraphQL Relay Connection specification
• Optimized JPA Query performance with single fetch queries
• Merging two or more GraphQL schemas from different JPA entity models
• Support for GraphQL schema auto-configuration, GraphQL Web Rest Controller via Spring Boot Starters
• GraphQL Subscriptions (Experimental)
• Spring GraphQl 1.x.x Auto configurations for Schema Runtime Wiring, Execution, Protocols, Testing

Supported Apis

• jpa-api 2.1 for up to 0.5.x versions
• jpa-api 3.1 for 1.0.x versions
• graphql-java 20.x for 1.1.x versions
• graphql-java 19.x for 0.5.x versions
• graphql-java 13 for 0.4.x versions
• spring-boot 2.6.x for 0.4.x versions
• spring-boot 2.7.x for 0.5.x versions
• spring-boot 3.0.x for 1.0.x versions
• spring-boot 3.1.x for 1.1.x versions
• spring-graphql 1.0.x for 0.5.2+ versions
• spring-graphql 1.1.x for 1.0.0+ versions
• spring-graphql 1.2.x for 1.1.0+ versions

Tested using JDK Versions

• Jdk 17
• Jdk 19

Modules

The GraphQL-JPA-Query library consists of the following modules:

1. graphql-jpa-query-annotations - Provides annotations for instrumenting your entity models with GraphQL Schema Descriptions
2. graphql-jpa-query-dependencies - Provides dependency management for project and external modules versions
3. graphql-jpa-query-autoconfigure - Provides autoconfiguration and merging of multiple GraphQL schemas in Spring Boot context
4. graphql-jpa-query-web - Provides Graphql Web Controller with Spring Boot auto-configuration support
5. graphql-jpa-query-schema - Provides interface specifications and implementation of the JPA Schema Builder and JPA Data Fetchers
6. graphql-jpa-query-boot-starter- Provides Spring Boot starter support to enable GraphQL JPA Query in your project
7. graphql-jpa-query-examples - Provides example application for Starwars sample entity models

Building with Maven Central

You can use Maven Central repository to include and build individual modules in your project.

For GraphQL JPA Annotations use:

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.introproventures</groupId>
  <artifactId>graphql-jpa-query-annotations</artifactId>
  <version>tag</version>
</dependency>

To import GraphQL JPA Dependencies into your dependencyManagement use:

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.introproventures</groupId>
  <artifactId>graphql-jpa-query-dependencies</artifactId>
  <version>tag</version>
      <type>pom</type>
  <scope>import</scope>	
</dependency>

For GraphQL JPA Schema Builder use:

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.introproventures</groupId>
    <artifactId>graphql-jpa-query-schema</artifactId>
    <version>tag</version>
</dependency>

For GraphQL JPA Query Boot Starter use:

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.introproventures</groupId>
  <artifactId>graphql-jpa-query-boot-starter</artifactId>
  <version>tag</version>
</dependency>

Other Dependencies

The core library module graphql-jpa-query-schema keeps dependencies to a minimum. The main dependecies for schema module are graphql-java, evo-inflector, javax.transaction-api, hibernate-jpa-2.1-api. The tests depend on Spring Boot 2.1 with Web and Hibernate for JPA starters as well as Project Lombok.

Schema Generation

The models are introspected using a JPA Entity Manager to auto-generate a GraphQL Schema. After that, you can use GraphQL schema to execute GraphQL query against your data.

Schema Merging to Work with Multiple Databases

You can use graphql-jpa-query with multiple databases by instrumenting EntityManager with its own DataSource and using GraphQLJpaSchemaBuilder to build GraphQLSchema for it. Then, you need to register each GraphQLSchema via GraphQLSchemaConfigurer.register(Registry registry) method implementation. The graphql-jpa-query-autoconfigure module provides Spring Boot Auto Configuration Factory Bean mechanism that merges schemas from many configurers defined in your Spring App context into a single GraphQLSchema bean. See https://github.com/introproventures/graphql-jpa-query/tree/master/graphql-jpa-query-example-merge example for details.

Schema Documentation

GraphQL provides a well documented schema for your domain entity model. The Schema Builder produces descriptions using @GraphQLDescription annotation on Java types and fields. These descriptions will show up in the GraphiQL schema browser to help you provide documented API to end-users. See the GraphiQL section below for more details. You can use @GraphQLIgnore annotation to exclude entity type or field from schema.

Queries

This library will wrap each entity into two query fields for each entity model (say Human or Droid - see tests) will have two representations in the generated schema:

• One that models the Entity directly using singular form, i.e. Human or Droid to get single instance by id.
• One that wraps the Entity in a pagable query request with where criteria expression using Entity pluralized form, i.e. Humans or Droids

Singular Query Wrapper

You can use simple query, if you need a single object as root of your query.

For Example:

query {
  Human(id: 1) { name }
}

Will return:

Human: {
  name: "Luke Skywalker"
}

Query Wrapper with Where Criteria Expressions

This library supports flexible type safe criteria expressions with user-friendly SQL query syntax semantics using where arguments and select field to specify the entity graph query with entiy attribute names as a combination of logical expressions like EQ, NE, GT, GE, LT, LR, IN, NIN, IS_NULL, NOT_NULL, BETWEEN, NOT_BETWEEN. You can use logical AND/OR combinations in SQL criteria expressions to specify complex criterias to fetch your data from SQL database. If you omit, where argument, all entities will be returned.

For Example:

query {
    Humans(where: { 
        name: { IN: ["Luke Skywalker", "Darth Vader"] }
    }) {
        select { name }
    }
}

Will return:

{
    Humans: {
        select: [
            { name: 'Luke Skywalker' },
            { name: 'Darth Vader' }
        ]
    }
}

Relation Attributes in Where Criteria Expressions:

It is also possible to specify complex filters using many-to-one and one-to-many entity attributes in where criteria expressions with variable parameter bindings, i.e.

Given the following query with many-to-one relation with variables {"authorId": 1 } :

query($authorId: Long) {  
  Books(where: {
    author: {id: {EQ: $authorId}}
  }) {
    select {
      id
      title
      genre
      author {
        id
        name
      }
    }
  }
}

will result in

{
  "data": {
    "Books": {
      "select": [
        {
          "id": 2,
          "title": "War and Peace",
          "genre": "NOVEL",
          "author": {
            "id": 1,
            "name": "Leo Tolstoy"
          }
        },
        {
          "id": 3,
          "title": "Anna Karenina",
          "genre": "NOVEL",
          "author": {
            "id": 1,
            "name": "Leo Tolstoy"
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

And given the following query with one-to-many relation:

query {
  Authors(where: {
    books: {genre: {IN: NOVEL}}
  }) {
    select {
      id
      name
      books {
        id
        title
        genre
      }
    }
  }
}

will result in

{
  "data": {
    "Authors": {
      "select": [
        {
          "id": 1,
          "name": "Leo Tolstoy",
          "books": [
            {
              "id": 2,
              "title": "War and Peace",
              "genre": "NOVEL"
            },
            {
              "id": 3,
              "title": "Anna Karenina",
              "genre": "NOVEL"
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

It is possible to use compound criterias in where search expressions given:

query {
  Authors(where: {
    books: {
      genre: {IN: NOVEL}
      title: {LIKE: "War"}
    }
  }) {
    select {
      id
      name
      books {
        id
        title
        genre
      }
    }
  }
}

Will return filtered inner collection result:

{
  "data": {
    "Authors": {
      "select": [
        {
          "id": 1,
          "name": "Leo Tolstoy",
          "books": [
            {
              "id": 2,
              "title": "War and Peace",
              "genre": "NOVEL"
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

It is also possible to filter inner collections as follows:

query {
  Authors(where: {
    books: {genre: {IN: NOVEL}}
  }) {
    select {
      id
      name
      books(where: {title: {LIKE: "War"}}) {
        id
        title
        genre
      }
    }
  }
}

will result in

{
  "data": {
    "Authors": {
      "select": [
        {
          "id": 1,
          "name": "Leo Tolstoy",
          "books": [
            {
              "id": 2,
              "title": "War and Peace",
              "genre": "NOVEL"
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Collection Filtering

You can specify criteria expressions for one-to-many associations in order to further filter entity by collection attributes:

For Example:

query {
  Humans {
    select { 
      name
      friends(where: {
        appearsIn: {
          IN: [A_NEW_HOPE]
        }
        name: {
          LIKE: "Han"
        }

      }) {
        id
        name
      }
    }
  }
}

Will Return:

"Humans": {
    "select": [
      {
        "name": "Luke Skywalker",
        "friends": [
          {
            "id": "1002",
            "name": "Han Solo"
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "name": "Darth Vader",
        "friends": []
      },
      {
        "name": "Han Solo",
        "friends": []
      },
      {
        "name": "Leia Organa",
        "friends": [
          {
            "id": "1002",
            "name": "Han Solo"
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "name": "Wilhuff Tarkin",
        "friends": []
      }
    ]
  }

Reverse Query

You can execute an inverse query to fitler results with a join in many-to-one association in one query with parameter bindings support added in 0.3.1

For Example:

query {
    Humans {
        select {
            name
            favoriteDroid(where: {appearsIn: {IN:[A_NEW_HOPE]}}) {
            	name
          	}
        }
    }
}

Will Return:

{
  "Humans": {
    "select": [
      {
        "name": "Luke Skywalker",
        "favoriteDroid": {
          "name": "C-3PO"
        }
      },
      {
        "name": "Darth Vader",
        "favoriteDroid": {
          "name": "R2-D2"
        }
      }
    ]
  }

Type Safe Arguments

The JPA Schema builder will derive QraphQL scalar types from JPA model attributes. At runtime, it will validate provided values against the schema. Enum Java types are also translated to QraphQL Enum scalar type.

Variable Parameter Bindings

Just like a REST API, it is possible to pass variable arguments to an endpoint in a GraphQL API. By declaring the arguments in the query defintion, typechecking happens automatically. Each variable argument must be named with $ prefix and have a type. To use variable inside query, simply reference it in any criteria expressions. Each variable reference will be resolved to its value during query execution, for example:

{
"query": "query HumanById($id: Long!) {
      Human(id: $id) { name }
}",
   "variables": {"id": 1}
}

Pagination

GraphQL does not specify any language or idioms for performing Pagination. This library provides support for pageable queries with page argument on pluralized query wrapper. Tha page start is 1-based, i.e. provide 1 as value for start parameter to request the first page with the number of records in the limit argument value.

This allows you to query for the "Page" version of any Entity, and return page metadata i.e. pages and total records count with the select data.

For example:

query {
    Humans(page:{start:1, limit: 3}) {
        pages
        total
        select {
            name
        }
    }
}

Will return:

{
  "Humans": {
    "pages": 2,
    "total": 5,
    "select": [
      {
        "name": "Luke Skywalker"
      },
      {
        "name": "Darth Vader"
      },
      {
        "name": "Han Solo"
      }
    ]
  }

The JPA DataFetcher implementation will execute an extra query to get the total elements only if you have requested 'pages' or 'total' fields.

Paging arguments support variable bindings.

Sorting

Sorting is supported on any field. Simply pass in an 'orderBy' argument with the value of ASC or DESC. Here's an example of sorting by name for Human objects. The default sort order can be specified using GraphQLDefaultSort annotation on entity field. If sort order is not specified and there is no field with default sort order provided, we will use field annotated with @Id to avoid paging confusions.

query {
    Human {
        name(orderBy: DESC)
        homePlanet
    }
}

Performance

Lazy loading of associations between entities is a well established best practice in JPA. Its main goal is to retrieve only the requested entities from the database and load the related entities only if needed. The use of FetchType.EAGER for associations mapping is one of the most common reasons for performance problems, because Hibernate loads eagerly fetched associations when it loads an entity. This is very inefficient and it gets even worse when you consider that Hibernate does that whether or not you will use the associated data.

The JPA DataFetcher implementation will attempt to build dynamic fetch graph in order to optimize query performance and avoid N+1 lazy loading. However, if there are composite foreign keys being used on @ManyToOne association declared in GraphQL query, Hibernate persistence provider will issue a separate SQL query to resolve the parent entity.

To disable default @ManyToOne associations behavior with eager fetch, make explicit use of FetchType.LAZY for all associations in your entity model. It will delay the initialization of the relationship unless it is specified in the GraphQL query entity graph to improve performance when fetching many entities with their associations.

GraphiQL Browser

GraphiQL (https://github.com/graphql/graphiql) can be used for simple testing. You can build and launch provided example as a Spring Boot Application, then navigate to http://localhost:8080/ to load GraphiQL browser. The collapsed Docs panel can opened by clicking on the button in the upper right corner to expose current test schema models.

You can run GraphQL queries in the left pannel. Type the query and hit the run button. The results should come up in the middle panel. If your query has variables, there is a minimized panel at the bottom left. Simply click on this to expand, and type in your variables as a JSON string with quoted keys.

License

Apache License v2.0