Feature Request: Graphql query filters AND / OR / NOT

Summary

For the time being, it is not possible to do OR / NOT conditions in query filters. By design, GraphQL won’t add this feature but many libraries create resolvers to provide it.

Motivation

Many graphql queries are located component side and the way they extract or filter data depends on UI rules. A lack of conditional filtering leads to intermediate transformations far from where the query is defined. It would be very useful to introduce AND/OR/NOT operators to build more complex logical expressions.

Basic example

Retrieve all entities where their fields match (a && !b) || (!a && b) in a single filter. The only way to do it component side is to create two separate queries and combine them.

allEntity (filter: { a: { eq: true }, b: { eq: false } }) {}
allEntity (filter: { a: { eq: false }, b: { eq: true } }) {}

What would it look like?

Top level AND/OR

allEntity (filter: { OR: [
  { a: { eq: true }, b: { eq: false } },
  { a: { eq: false }, b: { eq: true } }
] }) {}

GraphCool https://www.graph.cool/docs/reference/graphql-api/query-api-nia9nushae/#filtering-by-field

DGraph https://github.com/dgraph-io/dgraph/blob/8f53e376b7a07404ca26230b7f8d9ab4a0ee6dac/wiki/content/graphql/queries/and-or-not.md

where clause

allEntity (filter: { where: {
  OR: [
    { a: { eq: true }, b: { eq: false } },
    { a: { eq: false }, b: { eq: true } }
  ]
} }) {}

ContentStack https://www.contentstack.com/docs/developers/apis/graphql-content-delivery-api/#or-operator

Hasura https://hasura.io/docs/1.0/graphql/manual/queries/query-filters.html#using-multiple-filters-in-the-same-query-and-or

conjunction and conditions clauses

allEntity (filter: {
  conjunction: OR,
  conditions: [
    { a: { eq: true }, b: { eq: false } },
    { a: { eq: false }, b: { eq: true } }
  ]
} }) {}

Drupal https://drupal-graphql.gitbook.io/graphql/queries/filters

[scottwojan]

I have to agree this feels like baseline functionality for filtering capability. I just hit a wall due to not having OR capability.

[DevSide]

It’s interesting. I won’t use createResolvers where the logic is too far from the components and their queries.

Here is some query apis which use OR / NOT operators:

graphcool https://www.graph.cool/docs/reference/graphql-api/query-api-nia9nushae/#filtering-by-field

hasura https://hasura.io/docs/1.0/graphql/manual/queries/query-filters.html#using-multiple-filters-in-the-same-query-and-or

drupal api https://drupal-graphql.gitbook.io/graphql/queries/filters

contentstack api https://www.contentstack.com/docs/developers/apis/graphql-content-delivery-api/#or-operator