Types

This page describes how you use GraphQL types to set the Dgraph GraphQL schema.

Scalars

Dgraph GraphQL comes with the standard GraphQL scalars: Int, Float, String, Boolean and ID. There’s also a DateTime scalar - represented as a string in RFC3339 format.

Scalars Int, Float, String and DateTime can be used in lists. All scalars may be nullable or non-nullable.

The ID type is special. IDs are auto-generated, immutable, and can be treated as strings. Fields of type ID can be listed as nullable in a schema, but Dgraph will never return null.

• Schema rule: ID lists aren’t allowed - e.g. tags: [String] is valid, but ids: [ID] is not.
• Schema rule: Each type you define can have at most one field with type ID. That includes IDs implemented through interfaces.

It’s not possible to define further scalars - you’ll receive an error if the input schema contains the definition of a new scalar.

For example, the following GraphQL type uses all of the available scalars.

type User {
    userID: ID!
    name: String!
    lastSignIn: DateTime
    recentScores: [Float]
    reputation: Int
    active: Boolean
}

Scalar lists in Dgraph act more like sets, so tags: [String] would always contain unique tags. Similarly, recentScores: [Float] could never contain duplicate scores.

Enums

You can define enums in your input schema. For example:

enum Tag {
    GraphQL
    Database
    Question
    ...
}

type Post {
    ...
    tags: [Tag!]!
}

Types

From the built-in scalars and the enums you add, you can generate types in the usual way for GraphQL. For example:

enum Tag {
    GraphQL
    Database
    Dgraph
}

type Post {
    id: ID!
    title: String!
    text: String
    datePublished: DateTime
    tags: [Tag!]!
    author: Author!
}

type Author {
    id: ID!
    name: String!
    posts: [Post!]
    friends: [Author]
}

• Schema rule: Lists of lists aren’t accepted. For example: multiTags: [[Tag!]] isn’t valid.
• Schema rule: Fields with arguments are not accepted in the input schema unless the field is implemented using the @custom directive.

Interfaces

GraphQL interfaces allow you to define a generic pattern that multiple types follow. When a type implements an interface, that means it has all fields of the interface and some extras.

When a type implements an interface, GraphQL requires that the type repeats all the fields from the interface, but that’s just boilerplate and a maintenance problem, so Dgraph doesn’t need that repetition in the input schema and will generate the correct GraphQL for you.

For example, the following defines the schema for posts with comment threads; Dgraph will fill in the Question and Comment types to make the full GraphQL types.

interface Post {
    id: ID!
    text: String
    datePublished: DateTime
}

type Question implements Post {
    title: String!
}

type Comment implements Post {
    commentsOn: Post!
}

The generated GraphQL will contain the full types, for example, Question gets expanded as:

type Question implements Post {
    id: ID!
    text: String
    datePublished: DateTime
    title: String!
}

while Comment gets expanded as:

type Comment implements Post {
    id: ID!
    text: String
    datePublished: DateTime
    commentsOn: Post!
}