How do I let GraphZahl generate the documentation?

[Evert van Brussel]

In the README there's a png that shows that GraphZahl can generate schema documentation for GraphiQL.

Now in my project where I'm tinkering a bit with GraphZahl, I'm not using GraphiQL. I'm literally just running XCTests and debugging using print statements. 😅

And I'd like to be able to print this documentation that GraphZahl generates, because I'd like to be able to see what GraphZahl makes of my classes. But I can't figure out how. Can you tell me how?

[Mathias Quintero]

Sure thing!

So this is actually a feature of GraphQL in general. GraphQL allows type introspection. GraphiQL gets this documentation at runtime.

If you run the following query you can get it as JSON:

query IntrospectionQuery {
  __schema {
    queryType {
      name
    }
    mutationType {
      name
    }
    types {
      ...FullType
    }
  }
}

fragment FullType on __Type {
  kind
  name
  description
  fields(includeDeprecated: true) {
    name
    description
    args {
      ...InputValue
    }
    type {
      ...TypeRef
    }
    isDeprecated
    deprecationReason
  }
  inputFields {
    ...InputValue
  }
  interfaces {
    ...TypeRef
  }
  enumValues(includeDeprecated: true) {
    name
    description
    isDeprecated
    deprecationReason
  }
  possibleTypes {
    ...TypeRef
  }
}

fragment InputValue on __InputValue {
  name
  description
  type {
    ...TypeRef
  }
  defaultValue
}

fragment TypeRef on __Type {
  kind
  name
  ofType {
    kind
    name
    ofType {
      kind
      name
      ofType {
        kind
        name
        ofType {
          kind
          name
          ofType {
            kind
            name
            ofType {
              kind
              name
              ofType {
                kind
                name
              }
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

PS: I just ran graphiql in the browser and saw what query it was sending ;)

[Mathias Quintero]

GraphZahl is also actually using GraphQLSwift under the hood. But it doesn't make this very visible on purpose.

If you go to GraphQLSchema+resolve.swift and set a breakpoint you can also see it directly with the debugger

[Mathias Quintero]

On the other hand GraphQL Playground can create a graphql schema file.

This could be a useful feature to include

[Evert van Brussel]

If you run the following query you can get it as JSON:

Thank you, that made it clear to me that I need to start using GraphiQL, because that JSON is huge and I can't use it to quickly look whether it has detected one of my class properties and how it sees it.

[Mathias Quintero]

Yeah that's sadly the case.

This also relates to #4 since we want developers to know early when a function or property of theirs looks like it should be included but couldn't