TIL: Returning a JSON Field From Rails GraphQL

April 28, 2020

Sometimes a key in your GraphQL response needs to be a JSON object, and you can't define it in any greater granularity. This is often the case when the object's keys are different depending on specific logic rules. I had this exact problem today. The simplest way to deal with this is to define a custom JSON type in a separate module. You might end up with a few of these for various custom data types over time, so it's good to start a graph_utils/types folder to keep them together:

      
        module GraphqlUtils::Types
      
          Json = GraphQL::ScalarType.define do
      
            name 'JSON'
      
            description 'JSON type'
      
          end
      
        end

view raw 1.rb hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Then, when you define your field types for your GraphQL response, use:

      
        field :aJSONField,
      
          GraphqlUtils::Types::Json,
      
          'A field with freeform JSON data',
      
          property: :a_json_field

view raw 2.rb hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Now the aJSONField key can contain any JSON data, of any shape. This is a surprisingly common use case in the project I'm currently working on.

	module GraphqlUtils::Types
	Json = GraphQL::ScalarType.define do
	name 'JSON'
	description 'JSON type'
	end
	end

	field :aJSONField,
	GraphqlUtils::Types::Json,
	'A field with freeform JSON data',
	property: :a_json_field