Deprecate returning .resolve(...) dataloader requests

[rmosolgo]

This was previously supported, but it shouldn't be -- it makes Dataloader dependent on the lazy-resolve system. I'm interested in working on that system so I'd like to disentangle them first.

[Bajena]

Hi @rmosolgo, I'm trying to figure out how to migrate from the deprecated .request to .load calls in my code.

We're currently using a dataloader source is Apollo's resolve_reference (https://github.com/Gusto/apollo-federation-ruby?tab=readme-ov-file#reference-resolvers) and the things are batch loaded correctly. However, as soon as I switch to load, each record gets loaded separately.

Is the deprecation there, because there'll be some additional work done in the future? Or maybe we're doing something wrong? 🤔

[rmosolgo]

additional work done in the future

Yes, my goal is to move GraphQL-Ruby's "lazy resolution" outside the core runtime, so that it doesn't add overhead to schemas that don't use it. (Lazy resolution is a pre-Dataloader approach to batch loading, used by GraphQL-Batch among others: https://graphql-ruby.org/schema/lazy_execution.html). Dataloader was hooked up to that but I think it doesn't have to be.

I looked over the docs there but I don't quite see the usage of .request. Could you share some example code where .request is used? I'd be happy to look for a way to migrate it to .load (or perhaps .load_all in this case?) and make sure there's a way forward.

[utay]

Hello, same issue here.

We have to use .request in federation's self.resolve_reference:

module Baseball
  class CardType < Base::Object
    ...
    def self.resolve_reference(reference, context)
      context.dataloader.with(RecordLoader, Card, column: :asset_id).request(reference[:assetId])
    end

As resolve_reference gets called for each record separately, .load doesn't batch queries and .load_all can't be used.

[Bajena]

@rmosolgo I only found request here: https://graphql-ruby.org/dataloader/overview.html

Also, thank you for a very detailed explanation. I'll keep the deprecation warning for now and will be observing the development 🍿 :)

[utay]

Actually I was able to make it work with resolve_references and .load_all!

resolve_references (plural) is not documented in README but it's working well. By the way it was introduced after @rmosolgo's comment, thanks!

[rmosolgo]

👍 Thanks for sharing what you found, @utay. I was about to make the same suggestion. It's here in the source:

https://github.com/Gusto/apollo-federation-ruby/blob/51af77bce4e48e864e97b849053f1e5992edcd6a/lib/apollo-federation/entities_field.rb#L62-L63

You could use .load_all in that method, for example:

def self.resolve_references(references, context)
  asset_ids = references.map { |r| r[:assetId] }
  context.dataloader.with(RecordLoader, Card).load_all(asset_ids) 
end 

Let me know how it goes if you give it a try!