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0 Introduction To Graphql: Basic Overview

GraphQL is a query language for APIs that allows clients to efficiently fetch data through a single endpoint, contrasting with traditional REST APIs. It enables structured queries to select specific fields from objects defined by the backend, supports arguments for filtering results, and allows sub-querying for related data. This document provides a basic overview of GraphQL syntax and querying capabilities, with examples illustrating its functionality.

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4 views4 pages

0 Introduction To Graphql: Basic Overview

GraphQL is a query language for APIs that allows clients to efficiently fetch data through a single endpoint, contrasting with traditional REST APIs. It enables structured queries to select specific fields from objects defined by the backend, supports arguments for filtering results, and allows sub-querying for related data. This document provides a basic overview of GraphQL syntax and querying capabilities, with examples illustrating its functionality.

Uploaded by

aamr671970
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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0

Introduction to GraphQL

GraphQL is a query language typically used by web APIs as an alternative to REST. It enables
the client to fetch required data through a simple syntax while providing a wide variety of
features typically provided by query languages, such as SQL. Like REST APIs, GraphQL APIs
can read, update, create, or delete data. However, GraphQL APIs are typically implemented on
a single endpoint that handles all queries. As such, one of the main benefits of using GraphQL
over traditional REST APIs is efficiency in using resources and requests.

Basic Overview
A GraphQL service typically runs on a single endpoint to receive queries. Most commonly, the
endpoint is located at /graphql , /api/graphql , or something similar. For frontend web
applications to use this GraphQL endpoint, it needs to be exposed. Just like REST APIs, we
can, however, interact with the GraphQL endpoint directly without going through the frontend
web application to identify security vulnerabilities.

From an abstract point of view, GraphQL queries select fields of objects. Each object is of a
specific type defined by the backend. The query is structured according to GraphQL syntax,
with the name of the query to run at the root. For instance, we can query the id , username ,
and role fields of all User objects by running the users query:

Code: graphql

{
users {
id
username
role
}
}

The resulting GraphQL response is structured in the same way and might look something like
this:
Code: graphql

{
"data": {
"users": [
{
"id": 1,
"username": "htb-stdnt",
"role": "user"
},
{
"id": 2,
"username": "admin",
"role": "admin"
}
]
}
}

If a query supports arguments, we can add a supported argument to filter the query results. For
instance, if the query users supports the username argument, we can query a specific user by
supplying their username:

Code: graphql

{
users(username: "admin") {
id
username
role
}
}

We can add or remove fields from the query we are interested in. For instance, if we are not
interested in the role field and instead want to obtain the user's password, we can adjust the
query accordingly:

Code: graphql

{
users(username: "admin") {
id
username
password
}
}

Furthermore, GraphQL queries support sub-querying, which enables a query to obtain details
from an object referencing another object. For instance, assume that a posts query returns a
field author that holds a user object. We can then query the username and role of the author
in our query like so:

Code: graphql

{
posts {
title
author {
username
role
}
}
}

The result contains the title of all posts as well as the queried data of the corresponding
author:

Code: graphql

{
"data": {
"posts": [
{
"title": "Hello World!",
"author": {
"username": "htb-stdnt",
"role": "user"
}
},
{
"title": "Test",
"author": {
"username": "test",
"role": "user"
}
}
]
}
}

GraphQL queries support much more complex operations. However, this introductory overview
is sufficient for this module. For more details, check out the Learn section on the official
GraphQL website.

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