Extending schema with input which got suppressed by disableDefaultMutations does not work

[pahlke]

Hello,
I am using "disableDefaultMutations: true" in order to write the mutations by myself. When I then extend the schema with an input type with the same name as one which would have been generated automatically, I get at an error message that this type is already defined, although it is definitely not in the final schema. Is this intended? Or how can this be circumvented?

[benjie]

The reason you're getting this is because we're creating the types ahead of time even though they're not used. This has turned out to be a bad practice, and we've tried to move away from it in many places but cannot do so for this in the V4 chain without it being a breaking change (I think).

Here's where the types are defined:

graphile-engine/packages/graphile-build-pg/src/plugins/PgTablesPlugin.js

Lines 233 to 304 in 2335d6e

	TablePatchType = newWithHooks(
	GraphQLInputObjectType,
	{
	description: `Represents an update to a \`${tableTypeName}\`. Fields that are set will be updated.`,
	name: inflection.patchType(TableType),
	},
	{
	__origin: `Adding table patch type for ${describePgEntity(
	table
	)}. You can rename the table's GraphQL type via:\n\n ${sqlCommentByAddingTags(
	table,
	{
	name: "newNameHere",
	}
	)}`,
	pgIntrospection: table,
	isPgRowType: table.isSelectable,
	isPgCompoundType: !table.isSelectable,
	isPgPatch: true,
	pgAddSubfield(
	fieldName,
	attrName,
	pgType,
	spec,
	typeModifier
	) {
	pgPatchInputFields[fieldName] = {
	name: attrName,
	type: pgType,
	typeModifier,
	};
	return spec;
	},
	},
	true // Safe to skip this if no fields support updating
	);
	TableBaseInputType = newWithHooks(
	GraphQLInputObjectType,
	{
	description: `An input representation of \`${tableTypeName}\` with nullable fields.`,
	name: inflection.baseInputType(TableType),
	},
	{
	__origin: `Adding table base input type for ${describePgEntity(
	table
	)}. You can rename the table's GraphQL type via:\n\n ${sqlCommentByAddingTags(
	table,
	{
	name: "newNameHere",
	}
	)}`,
	pgIntrospection: table,
	isPgRowType: table.isSelectable,
	isPgCompoundType: !table.isSelectable,
	isPgBaseInput: true,
	pgAddSubfield(
	fieldName,
	attrName,
	pgType,
	spec,
	typeModifier
	) {
	pgBaseInputFields[fieldName] = {
	name: attrName,
	type: pgType,
	typeModifier,
	};
	return spec;
	},
	}
	);
	}

Note these types are not only used for the default CRUD mutations, but also as inputs for the various PostgreSQL functions you can create, so we cannot simply disable them if disableDefaultMutations is set 😞

However, all is not lost. If you're certain that you don't need any of these types you can supply alternative inflectors for them using makeAddInflectorsPlugin so that the originals are named differently, freeing up their original names for you to use.

[ab-pm]

A different, if not better, workaround than renaming the input types would be to @omit create,update the fields that you don't want in the input type, and use extend input … { … } in the schema extension to customise the rest. Maybe you don't have to customise it at all, you can just refer to the type in your extendSchemaPlugin and it will end up in the final schema because you referenced it.

[benjie]

I'm closing this issue because it is not a bug, these type names should be reserved for function and mutation inputs.