GraphQL

GraphQL is a modern replacement of the almost obsolete REST approach to present API. It's been almost 16 years since the REST idea was found in 2000 by Roy Fielding. With all credit to everything we accomplished using REST it's time to change for something better. GraphQL advanced in many ways and has fundamental improvements over the old good REST:

• Self-checks embedded on the ground level of your backend architecture.
• Reusable API for different client versions and devices, i.e. no more need in maintaining /v1, /v2 or /v10002545.07E20.
• A complete new level of distinguishing of the backend and frontend logic.
• Easily generated documentation and incredibly intuitive way to explore created API.
• Once your architecture is complete – most client-based changes does not require backend modifications.
• It could be hard to believe but give it a try, and you'll be rewarded with much better architecture and so much easier to support code.

A GraphQL service is created by defining types and fields on those types, then providing functions for each field on each type.

Queries

Once a GraphQL service is running (typically at a URL on a web service), it can be sent GraphQL queries to validate and execute. A received query is first checked to ensure it only refers to the types and fields defined, then runs the provided functions to produce a result.

For example the query:

{
    users {
        id
        name
    }
}

Could produce the JSON result:

{
    "users": [
        {
            "id": 1,
            "name": "Vasya"
        },
        {
            "id": 2,
            "name": "Petya"
        }
    ]
}

What is Railt?

Railt is a framework that uses existing server implementations (like webonyx/graphql-php) and provides a convenient API for interacting with the kernel, including an extended SDL compiler, directives and other tools for working with GraphQL.