Absinthe scalar parse function never called

Questions / Help
1

Hi,

I’m using postgreSQL’ JSONB object so store dynamic stats that can have any form given by the user.
Trying to use graphQL with absinthe, i’m currently having a problem.

See that stats is a list of :json :

  object :character do
    field(:id, :id)
    field(:stats, list_of(:json))
    field(:uuid, :string)
    field(:name, :string)
    field(:user, :user, resolve: assoc(:user))
    field(:items, list_of(:item), resolve: assoc(:item))
  end

  scalar :json do
    parse(fn input ->
      case Poison.decode(input.value) do
        {:ok, result} -> {:ok, result}
        _ -> :error
      end
    end)

    serialize(&Poison.encode!/1)
  end

For the request

query {
  charactersByUser(userId: 4) {
    name
    stats
    items {
      name
    }
  } 
}

The server currently returns

{
  "data": {
    "charactersByUser": [
      {
        "stats": [
          "{\"value\":13,\"name\":\"strengh\"}",
          "{\"value\":5,\"name\":\"Fierce\"}"
        ],
        "name": "Cramberry",
        "items": null
      },
      {
        "stats": [
          "{\"value\":0,\"name\":\"strengh\"}",
          "{\"value\":0,\"name\":\"*** size\"}"
        ],
        "name": "Le petit *** de Mikail",
        "items": null
      }
    ]
  }
}

You can see that my json “stats” is not parsed.
Ive also tried to add

      raise "not relevant"
      IO.puts("[BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH] input.value")

Inside the parse function just to see if the app reacts… no effect

Any help appreciated… :frowning:

2

Since you’re returning json to the client the serialize/1 function is being called, if you were receiving the json field from client then the parse/1 function would be called.

Your schema has: field(:stats, list_of(:json)) and the client is currently receiving:

"stats": [
          "{\"value\":13,\"name\":\"strengh\"}",
          "{\"value\":5,\"name\":\"Fierce\"}"
        ],

Which is exactly correct (per your schema), since it is a list of JSON values (remember that JSON is actually a large string).

If you instead want to return a JSON object at the stats value then per GraphQL you need to provide it in the query. So instead of a query like:

query {
  charactersByUser(userId: 4) {
    name
    stats
  } 
}

You need to use:

query {
  charactersByUser(userId: 4) {
    name
    stats {
      value
      name
    }
  } 
}

This is because the whole point of GraphQL is for the client to explicitly request each field that it wants to receive, all the way down to each field.

1 Like
3

Oh ok now i feel dumb lol

Thank you, i didn’t thought that way… it was late

Thanks ^^

1 Like