How to parse GraphQL request string into an object

Question

I am running Apollo lambda server for GraphQL. I want to intercept the GraphQL query/mutation from the POST request body and parse it so I can find out which query/mutation the request is asking for. The environment is Node.js.

The request isn't JSON, it's GraphQL query language. I've looked around to try and find a way to parse this into an object that I can navigate but I'm drawing a blank.

The Apollo server must be parsing it somehow to direct the request. Does anyone know a library that will do this or pointers on how I can parse the request? Examples of request bodies and what I want to retrieve below.

{"query":"{\n  qQueryEndpoint {\n    id\n  }\n}","variables":null,"operationName":null}

I would like to identify that this is a query and that qQueryEndpoint is being asked for.

{"query":"mutation {\\n  saveSomething {\\n    id\\n  }\\n}","variables":null}

I would like to identify that this is a mutation and the saveSomething mutation is being used.

My first idea for this is to strip out the line breaks and try and use regular expressions to parse the request but it feels like a very brittle solution.

Answer 1

You can use graphql-tag :

const gql = require('graphql-tag');

const query = `
  {
    qQueryEndpoint {
      id
    }
  }
`;

const obj = gql`
  ${query}
`;

console.log('operation', obj.definitions[0].operation);
console.log('name', obj.definitions[0].selectionSet.selections[0].name.value);

Prints out :

operation query
name qQueryEndpoint

And with your mutation :

operation mutation
name saveSomething