GraphQL Examples

[dtod]

Is there a resource with a set of working GraphQL queries? I'm still mystified by it and the graphiql interface, although I suspect a ten minute intro video might help get me over the hump.

[robotcars]

There are some resouces and example queries posted and listed in Awesome CanvasLMS #CanvasGraphQL 

And while not a tutorial video, I put some videos of setting up and running some queries in Problems with using GraphiQL code in Insomnia 

This is definitely an area that needs more community documentation.

[dtod]

As best I can tell, right now, GraphQL doesn't actually allow you to query (search) much, and is mostly about returning connected information once you have an item ID. I have not found a way to search for a set of courses for example and then do a query on those courses, or to search for a specific assignment and do something on that assignment. If I have an ID already and don't care about filtering the data, then GraphQL seems to work.

I'd love for someone to tell me that I'm wrong FWIW.

For example, I was asked to get data from a bunch of assignments in a set of courses. My approach at the moment is to use the REST API to identify the assignments, and then I can use GraphQL to return the data I want about that assignment in just one call, in this case, the name, email and when submitted.

query MyQuery2 {
  assignment(id: "3810829") {
    id
    name
    course {
      courseCode
    }
    submissionsConnection {
      nodes {
        submittedAt
        user {
          name
          email
        }
      }
      pageInfo {
        endCursor
        hasNextPage
      }
    }
  }
}
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If I'm on the wrong track, please do let me know!

[themidiman]

Jumping in here because I, also, am curious about the benefits of GraphQL. Have you experimented with the graphiql interface? https your-institution.instructure.com/graphiql 

I tried it with a known assignment in a course for our instance and got a confirmed response back with the list of names and submission time stamps.

So yes, it appears as long as you have a known list/array of assignment ids you can issue multiple calls to the graphql api endpoint

I'm curious what your experience is going forward.

[James]

 @dtod ,

I'd love for someone to tell me that I'm wrong FWIW.

You're wrong.

There. Did you want me to mean it, as well? That's something completely different.

I'm not sure what you mean by searching for an assignment.  For example, if I know a course ID, then I can get a list of all of the assignments in the course. I would still need to provide external processing to determine which ones met the requirements -- same as with the REST API.

query MyQuery {
  course(id: "2687823") {
    assignmentsConnection {
      nodes {
        _id
        name
      }
    }
  }
}‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

But yeah, in general, I find the REST API better for consuming mass amounts of data from a single table, while the GraphQL might be better for combining tables together -- but for single items, not bulk downloads.

[dtod]

🙂

Yes, I mean, something like

query MyQuery {
  course(course_code: "SDV.*") {
    assignmentsConnection {
      nodes(name: "My Assignment") {
        _id
        name
      }
    }
  }
}

[James]

I saw in the GraphQL API Change Log that courses is being added on January 29, 2020. I can't find any details on what that involves, but perhaps there will be an assignmentsConnection then? There is already this inside allCourses so I hope it would be under the new courses as well.

It still wouldn't let you search by assignment name. When you try the nodes (name: "My Assignment"), you get a "Field 'nodes' doesn't accept argument 'name'" error message. Until that part is supported, you can get a list of all of the assignments and manually search through them.

You might be able to get a list of all assignments for all courses already. Note that this was a very long query for just the courses I'm enrolled in.

query allAssignmentsAllCourses {
  allCourses {
    _id
    name
    assignmentsConnection {
      nodes {
        _id
        name
      }
    }
  }
}
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The issue is that allCourses returns just those courses that the user is enrolled in. The creative part would be creating a user that was enrolled in all of the courses that you needed to search. It could also be confusing to the instructor who wondered why there was an unknown person in their course.

Another approach is to use Canvas Data. It contains information about every assignment for every course, although the data is a little stale by the time you get it. Still, you would be able to get the assignment IDs quickly.

[James]

 @dtod  

To update my previous post ...

I found that in the beta instance (not in production just yet) the account has a courseConnection and that has an assignmentsConnection. Through that, you can get a list of every assignment for every course within an account.

There is too much information unless you use pagination. However, with pagination you should be able to get a list of all assignments for all courses within an account.

I'll admit that I don't understand pagination with GraphQL yet, so this may not be the way to do it, but it returned information for me when it timed out without the "first" part.

query listAllAssignments {
  account(id: "12345") {
    coursesConnection(first: 10) {
      nodes {
        _id
        name
        assignmentsConnection {
          nodes {
            _id
            name
          }
        }
      }
      pageInfo {
        endCursor
        hasNextPage
      }
    }
  }
}
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The 12345 needs replaced with your account number. "self" does not work.

[birger_eriksson]

As the output in graphiql is JSON and hard to read I copy the output and paste it to a JSON-to-CSV converter (eg. https://www.convertcsv.com/json-to-csv.htm ) and export to Excel format. Then I get a more readable output with option to search, sort and filter.