4. Resolver args parameter
4m

📥 Retrieving our data

Our schema is freshly updated with new types and a new for fetching a given track. We'll need to implement and methods for these new .

Our REST API can be found here: https://odyssey-lift-off-rest-api.herokuapp.com.

It has a GET track/:id endpoint, which takes the track ID as a parameter and returns that track's data. Let's first try out this endpoint: give it a track ID c_0 and check if it provides us with all the necessary data.

Screenshot of REST API docs with focus on the GET track/:id endpoint

Here's the full GET /track/c_0 response:

{
  "id": "c_0",
  "thumbnail": "https://res.cloudinary.com/dety84pbu/image/upload/v1598465568/nebula_cat_djkt9r.jpg",
  "topic": "Cat-stronomy",
  "authorId": "cat-1",
  "title": "Cat-stronomy, an introduction",
  "description": "Curious to learn what Cat-stronomy is all about? Explore the planetary and celestial alignments and how they have affected our space missions.",
  "numberOfViews": 0,
  "createdAt": "2018-09-10T07:13:53.020Z",
  "length": 2377,
  "modulesCount": 10,
  "modules": [
    "l_0",
    "l_1",
    "l_2",
    "l_3",
    "l_4",
    "l_5",
    "l_6",
    "l_7",
    "l_8",
    "l_9"
  ]
}

Looking closely at the shape of that response, we can see that we do get the description and the numberOfViews. That's great! We also get an array of modules, but they're only IDs, and we'll need more details than that. We'll have to use another endpoint to get those details later.

Try out the REST API endpoint for /track/:id, giving it the ID c_1. What's the first module ID on the list?

💾 Updating the RESTDataSource

Let's take care of our TrackAPI, the in charge of calling our REST API and retrieving the data. We can find it in the server/src/datasources folder, in the track-api.js file.

Let's create a new method to get a single track based on its ID. Let's call it getTrack, and it'll take a trackId as a parameter.

We'll use the get method provided by our RESTDataSource class to make a call to the track/:id endpoint, passing it the trackId from the . Then, we'll return the results.

In track-api.js, add the following method to the TrackAPI class:

server/src/datasources/track-api.js
getTrack(trackId) {
  return this.get(`track/${trackId}`);
}

Now that our is retrieving the data, our should be able to use it! In Lift-off II, we already worked out the connection between our and inside the ApolloServer configuration options, so we should be good to add more as necessary.

✍️ Adding a new resolver

Let's take care of this track . In the server/src folder, open up the resolvers.js file.

In our Query object, we'll add a new function below tracksForHome. In our schema, we named the track, so here it has to have the same name.

Recall that a is a function with four optional parameters: parent, args, contextValue, and info.

In resolvers.js, add the following after the tracksForHome :

server/src/resolvers.js
track: (parent, args, contextValue, info) => {},

We've used the third contextValue before, to access the dataSources key. This is where our trackAPI.getTrack method lives. This method expects the id of a track. We'll specify that value later as an when we build the .

To access this id, we can use the second parameter in the : args. args is an object that contains all that were provided for the . We can destructure this object to access the id property, then pass that id into our getTrack method.

Then, we can return the results of that method.

Update the track in resolvers.js:

track: (parent, {id}, {dataSources}, info) => {
  return dataSources.trackAPI.getTrack(id);
},

Finally, let's clean up our two other parameters. We can replace parent with an underscore since we won't be using it, and we can omit the last parameter info altogether; we won't use it either.

Let's not forget to add a nice little comment above to help teammates and future you make sense of what this does.

Update the track in resolvers.js:

// get a single track by ID, for the track page
track: (_, {id}, {dataSources}) => {
  return dataSources.trackAPI.getTrack(id);
},
Code Challenge!

Write a resolver function for the spaceCat field to query a spaceCat by ID. Follow the conventions used above for the four resolver parameters, and use arrow function syntax. Use the dataSources object to access the spaceCatsAPI.getSpaceCat() method, which takes the id from args and returns the results.

We're done with our track , but not quite finished with our resolver work yet. If you recall, the track data returned by our REST API has a modules property, but it only contains a list of module IDs. Next, we'll need to make sure we're getting the details of each module.

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