GraphQL WHERE clause on array field returns all items in array

[criticalmaas]

Bug Report

When using GraphQL with a collection that contains an array, when using the where clause on an array field which is of type checkbox or select, the result is that all items in the array are returned

Expected Behavior

When using the where clause, only the items in the array that match the where condition should be returned. Or alternatively, can a where condition be supported on the nested array portion of the query?

Current Behavior

Possible Solution

Steps to Reproduce

1. create a collection with an array
2. inside the array create either a check box (true/false) or select with two items. In the example I used "draft" and "published"
3. create two array elements in the document each with different values for the checkbox or select
4. create a GraphQL query to select items from the array given a where clause which equals the value of checkbox or select
5. notice that all items in the array are returned

Detailed Description

collection fields:

import { CollectionConfig } from "payload/dist/collections/config/types"

const LocationsList: CollectionConfig = {
  slug: "locations-list",
  fields: [
    {
      name: "region",
      type: "relationship",
      relationTo: "regions",
      hasMany: false,
      localized: true,
    },
    {
      name: "locations",
      type: "array",
      label: "Locations within Region",
      labels: {
        singular: "Location",
        plural: "Locations",
      },
      fields: [
        {
          type: "row",
          fields: [
            {
              name: "label",
              type: "text",
              localized: true,
            },
            {
              name: "value",
              type: "text",
            },
          ],
        },
        {
          name: "status",
          type: "select",
          options: ["draft", "published"],
        },
      ],
    },
  ],
}

export default LocationsList

sample query

{
  LocationsLists(
    where: { locations__status: { equals: draft}}) {
    docs {
      region {
        label
      }
      locations {
        label
        status
      }
    }
  }
}

response:

"data": {
    "LocationsLists": {
      "docs": [
        {
          "region": {
            "label": "California"
          },
          "isActive": true,
          "locations": [
            {
              "label": "Burbank",
              "status": "draft"
            },
            {
              "label": "Glendale",
              "status": "published"
            }
          ]
        },
        {
          "region": {
            "label": "Florida"
          },
          "isActive": true,
          "locations": [
            {
              "label": "Orlando",
              "status": "draft"
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

payload v0.13.3
browser: chrome latest

[jmikrut]

Hey @criticalmaas — thank you for bringing this up. I think this is working as expected right now, because the first document in your returned results does have a status field equal to draft.

Although:

Or alternatively, can a where condition be supported on the nested array portion of the query?

This is totally possible. It would be a GraphQL-only feature, of course, but it's certainly doable.

The bulk of the work would be to convert our database query syntax into something to be used in GraphQL resolvers on POJOs, which could end up being useful elsewhere as well.

If you're interested in pursuing this feature request, I suggest we close this issue and take the conversation to a new Feature Request Discussion where we can talk through the approach in further depth.

This new feature could also be applied to the blocks field type and I think it would be important to get the query syntax easily abstracted to work against POJOs as well as MongoDB queries.

What do you think?

[freakyfriday]

Hi @jmikrut,

Firstly thanks for putting together such an awesome headless CMS framework! I was having a think about a solution to this problem and thought perhaps we could look at using aggregation in Mongoose with a $filter on an array property which requires only certain results to be returned.

Below is an example of what the query might look like:

1. Each array property is queryable eg services(where: $where_services) which has a query type eg User_Services_where

2. If the array property has a query then we implement a $filter command in Mongoose using aggregation. Because the shape of the document should be the same we can cast Mongoose plain object back into a mongoose doc. See example - https://stackoverflow.com/a/36371665/3043981

What do you think?