More elegant `select` API

Problem

Currently in Blitz apps I’m manually selecting all the fields I need to prevent unwanted fields from being exposed to the API.

The problem is that this is super cumbersome to write as an object with : true for every field.

  const order = await prisma.order.findOne({
    where,
    select: {
      id: true,
      createdAt: true,
      updatedAt: true,
      chargeStatus: true,
      amount: true,
      customer: {
        select: {
          id: true,
          firstName: true,
          lastName: true,
          email: true,
          phone: true,
        },
      },
      orderGroup: {
        select: {
          name: true,
        },
      },
    },
  })

Suggested solution

Something easier, perhaps accepting an array of strings.

  const order = await prisma.order.findOne({
    where,
    select: {
      fields: ['id', 'createdAt', 'updatedAt', 'chargeStatus', 'amount'],
      customer: {
        select: {
          fields: ['id', 'firstName', 'lastName', 'email', 'phone']
        }
      },
      orderGroup: {
        select: {
          fields: ['name']
        }
      },
    },
  })

And it would be sweet to have a shortcut without fields:

  const order = await prisma.order.findOne({
    where,
    select: {
      fields: ['id', 'createdAt', 'updatedAt', 'chargeStatus', 'amount'],
      customer: {
        select: ['id', 'firstName', 'lastName', 'email', 'phone']
      },
      orderGroup: {
        select: ['name']
      },
    },
  })

Alternatives

I haven’t thought of anything else.

Additional context

—

[nikolasburk]

For anyone finding this issue, I just quickly want to drop in and mention that a user on Slack today posted a nice workaround pattern for an exclude API:

We’ll also document this pattern soon.

[Sytten]

My take on it is that is a vastly different syntax and it will cause beginners to be even more lost when they start (plus it confuses the autocomplete). If this is considered seriously, I would do the following:

const order = await prisma.order.findOne({
    where,
    select: {
      FIELDS: ['id', 'createdAt', 'updatedAt', 'chargeStatus', 'amount'],
      customer: {
        select: {
          FIELDS: ['id', 'firstName', 'lastName', 'email', 'phone']
        }
      },
      orderGroup: {
        select: {
          FIELDS: ['name']
        }
      },
    },
  })

Similar to AND, OR, etc in the where clause. It makes it clear that this is a Prisma “advanced” thing and it makes sure we don’t have a naming conflict on models that might have a column named fields.