Graphene-Django Filenaming Conventions

I'm rebuilding a former Django REST API project as a GraphQL one. I now have queries & mutations working properly. Most of my learning came from looking at existing Graphene-D

Solution 1:

There aren't any conventions yet, since GraphQL is a fairly new alternative method to REST. Thus, "conventions" are created at the moment we speak.

However, since schema is general-defined term you may rename it to queries.

This is my project structure:

django_proj/
    manage.py
    requirements.txt
    my_app/
        __init__.py
        migrations/
        admin.py
        schema/
            __init__.py
            schema.py     # holds the class Query. The GraphQL endpoints, if you like
            types.py      # holds the DjangoObjectType classes
            inputs.py     # holds the graphene.InputObjectType classes (for defining input to a query or mutation)
            mutations.py  # holds the mutations (what else?!)

So the schema.py (__init__) could be renamed to queries.py if you like. There is no much big difference between these two words.

Solution 2:

I liked nik_m's answer so much I wrote some code to generate the template structure from inside the Django shell. I want to enforce some consistency as I create these files over and over again. I'm putting the code here in case someone else finds it useful.

import os

from django.conf import settings


def schema_setup(app_name):
    """
    Sets up a default schema file structure.
    """
    SCHEMA_DIRECTORY_NAME = 'schema'
    app_directory = os.path.join(settings.PROJECT_DIR, app_name)
    if not os.path.exists(app_directory):
        raise Exception("Can't find app directory {}".format(app_directory))

    schema_directory = os.path.join(app_directory, SCHEMA_DIRECTORY_NAME)
    if os.path.exists(schema_directory):
        raise Exception("Schema directory {} already exists.".format(schema_directory))

    os.makedirs(schema_directory)
    mutation_class = "{}Mutation".format(app_name.title())
    query_class = "{}Query".format(app_name.title())

    init_txt = "from .mutations import {}\nfrom .queries import {}\n".format(mutation_class, query_class)
    fields_txt = "# Insert common fields here.\nimport graphene\n"
    inputs_txt = "# Insert graphene.InputObjectType classes.\nimport graphene\n"
    mutations_txt = "# Insert graphql mutations here.\nimport graphene\n\nclass {}(graphene.AbstractType):\n    pass\n".format(mutation_class)
    queries_txt = "# Insert graphql queries here.\nimport graphene\n\nclass {}(graphene.AbstractType):\n    pass\n".format(query_class)
    types_txt = "# Insert DjangoObjectType classes here.\nimport graphene\nfrom graphene_django.types import DjangoObjectType\n"

    for fname, file_text in [("__init__.py", init_txt),
                             ("fields.py", fields_txt),
                             ("inputs.py", inputs_txt),
                             ("mutations.py", mutations_txt),
                             ("queries.py", queries_txt),
                             ("types.py", types_txt),
                             ]:
        with open(os.path.join(schema_directory, fname), "w") as output_file:
            output_file.write(file_text)
        print("Created {}".format(fname))

From inside the Django shell, run like schema_setup("my_app")

Note:

• This assumes you set PROJECT_DIR in your settings like PROJECT_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))
• In your top level schema, import like from my_app.schema import MyAppQuery, MyAppMutation
• I've gone back and forth on "query" vs. "queries" and "mutation" vs "mutations" -- as of this moment, the graphene documentation isn't consistent