A Complete Guide to GraphQL API Implementation

Author Name
  • By Surya Sharma
  • |
  • clock 8 minutes MIN READ
  • |
  • calendar Updated: June 29, 2022

Mobile applications and cloud computing are rapidly changing our everyday lives, putting additional pressure on developers to release new app features requiring fast data transport methods.

Further client-side modifications in REST necessitate server-side changes, limiting developer agility.

With the rise of cloud platforms and highly scalable architectures, something new was required—something scalable and compatible with how data is generated and consumed on the Internet today.

Recognizing some of these crucial requirements, Facebook created GraphQL in 2012 to fill up some of REST’s inadequacies.

This article will go through the GraphQL definition and some of the most significant reasons to adopt GraphQL at your firm.

What is Graph Query Language?

Graph Query Language (GraphQL) is an API query language that outlines the approach to request data and a server-side framework for processing such requests.

It allows you to retrieve the data from the server that your application requires.

Because GraphQL controls the data rather than the server, your application may send a GraphQL request to your server API endpoint and always anticipate a predictable data response.

There are three primary properties of GraphQL:

  • It allows the customer to specify exactly the type of data required.

  • It simplifies the process of combining information from several sources.

  • It describes data using a type system.

Developers want more adaptability in today’s business environment. GraphQL’s robust type system allows programmers to closely monitor their application’s data frame by describing the precise data items required from the server.

GraphQL will do all the heavy lifting on the server in the background, including traversing several server resources to retrieve the necessary data and provide it to the application in the format requested.

This increases application speed since the essential data is obtained from the server and sent over the network.

Assume that you are running late and have only a few bucks in your wallet to do your weekly food shopping. You can utilize time and save money by picking only those items you need the most for the remainder of the month.

Furthermore, if all the food items are not available at one store, and you have to visit multiple stores located in different areas, having a well-labeled way to manage your visit could be helpful.

This is equivalent to how GraphQL uses a data labeling type convention to hide all the complexity and obtain the data you need in one round-trip without over-fetching.

GraphQL Request

query

{

customer(id: “2010”) {

name

location

}

}

GraphQL Request Response

{

“info”: {

“customer”: {

“name”: “Smith”,

“location”: “Seattle”

}

}

}

GraphQL is sometimes mistaken for a database technology due to its rising popularity with data access, although it is not.

It is a query language for APIs that are not bound to any database system, and it doesn’t even require you to host a Graph database.

This makes it database agnostic and usable in any larger environment where an API is utilized, such as a proxy service that isn’t bound to a particular database.

The developer may hide all the intricacies behind the scenes by using GraphQL.

Reasons to Use GraphQL at Your Firm?

Are you still wondering, “What is GraphQL used for”?

The beauty of GraphQL is in its ease of usage and flexibility. It allows you to specify precisely what you want and then obtains only that data.

It’s one of the reasons why GraphQL is steadily gaining acceptance as a new API development paradigm.

Furthermore, it is a powerful facilitator for API developers and API users.

Why use GraphQL”?

The following section will highlight some significant reasons to use GraphQL at your firm.

1. No Over-Fetching or Under-Fetching

GraphQL allows a programmer to retrieve only the information they need. This eliminates the problems caused by over-fetching and under-fetching.

When a response downloads more data than necessary, this is known as over-fetching. For instance, take the home page of a blogging website.

It merely shows the titles and URLs of all blog posts. You’ll need to utilize the API to acquire all the blog posts (along with content, photographs, and so on) and then show only what you need, usually using UI code, to display the blog material. It slows down your application and utilizes more data, both costly to the consumer.

With GraphQL, you provide the specific fields you want to fetch (in this example, the blog post’s title and URL), and it only brings the data for those fields.

In contrast, under-fetching occurs when an API request does not provide enough data. You’ll need to make extra API queries to acquire associated or relevant data in this situation.

For example, when displaying a single blog post, you must also obtain the linked author’s entry to show the author’s name and bio.

This is something that GraphQL is efficient in. It allows you to do a single query to retrieve all pertinent facts.

2. A Single Data Graph for Everyone

GraphQL is a great solution for companies that have numerous teams and systems and wish to make their data accessible through a single API

GraphQL may disguise this complexity by offering a single endpoint to which clients can communicate, regardless of how many database systems, applications, codebases, or third-party APIs you utilize.

The GraphQL server is in charge of getting data from the appropriate locations, and clients are never required to know the specifics of where individual bits of data originate.

As a consequence, when it comes to making data accessible to consumers and internal users, the GraphQL ecosystem offers the most flexibility.

3. An Enhanced Programming Experience

The GraphQL environment contains a range of software that makes dealing with the language simple.

Due to the self-documenting characteristics offered by GraphQL, tools like GraphiQL and GraphQL Playground provide a superior experience, allowing programmers to examine and test out APIs with minimal effort.

Additionally, code-generating tools such as GraphQL Code Generator may be used to speed up development even more.

In contrast, additional tools and best practices exist to solve specific issues, such as:

  • A lot of client libraries feature client-side caching by default.

  • Cursor-based pagination can be used to provide paging across lists of data.

  • By grouping data retrieval requests, the DataLoader improves performance and provides a basic amount of server-side caching.

4. Utilize Time and Bandwidth Effectively

By decreasing the number of routing trips to the server, GraphQL allows you to make many resource requests in one query call, saving time and bandwidth.

It also aids in saving waterfall network requests, in which you must resolve resources that are reliant on prior proposals.

Consider our earlier blog website homepage example, where you can show current entries, most famous articles, genres, and promoted articles, among other things.

Displaying them using REST architecture would require at least five queries; however, a comparable situation utilizing GraphQL would need only one GraphQL query.

5. Versioning Isn’t Necessary

Due to the alterations in resources or the query/response pattern of the resources over time, programmers produce new versions in REST architecture.

Thus, keeping versions is a widespread practice. Regarding API changes, GraphQL advocates a different approach: evolution.

Also, Read | Key Differences Between Microservices vs APIs

There’s no need to keep track of versions using GraphQL. The URL or address of the site remains the same.

You can create new fields and remove old ones. When a client queries a deprecated field, it receives a deprecation warning.

6. Improved System Quality

The name and type of each field and the connections between distinct entities are all laid out in GraphQL APIs using a type system.

This schema is used to verify client queries. The schema may be accessed using introspection, commonly used for documentation and code for client-side API integration.

As a result, while utilizing GraphQL, having a well-documented API requires little work.

This helps programmers deal with an API for the first time with excellent transparency, making development go more smoothly and efficiently.

GraphQL vs. REST API

 GraphQLREST API
File upload

With GraphQL, uploading files is not possible.

REST allows you to upload files to several machines through the Internet.

Data Fetch

A single endpoint defines all data requirements for the API call.

Numerous server resource endpoints must be accessed, necessitating multiple client-server round trips.

Cache

For caching, GraphQL does not follow the HTTP standard.

REST APIs can benefit from caching, which is part of the HTTP specification.

Final Words

REST is undoubtedly adequate, but if you’re looking for a better approach to designing APIs and servicing various customers, you should consider contentful GraphQL.

GraphQL enables you to create evolvable and queryable APIs, disguise the complex nature of internal systems used to get various bits of data, and make use of a type system that generates automated and up-to-date API documentation.

Together with its infrastructure and network, these characteristics make GraphQL an efficient and productive tool for both API and client developers.

Although GraphQL involves some commitment, the benefits significantly exceed the costs in circumstances where a large amount of data and services must be made available to various existing and new users.

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