AQL Builder

A simple dynamic query-builder for ArangoDB, written in Typescript.

Installation

npm i --save aql-builder

Usage

AQL Builder consists of a small cluster of types, and a helper class to make using them easier.

• AqQuery, a JSON structure that describes a complete AQL query
• AqProperty, a JSON structure that describes a single property or attribute of an Arango document
• AqFilter, AqAggregate, and AqSort; all subtypes of AqProperty
• buildQuery, a function that turns an AqQuery JSON object into a GeneratedAqlQuery that can be run via arangojs
• AqBuilder, a class that lets you build an AqQuery using chainable helper methods.

Chainable methods with AqBuilder

import { AqBuilder } from 'aql-builder';

const aqlQuery = new AqBuilder('responses')
  .filterBy('url.protocol') // Defaults to '!= null'
  .filterBy('url.domain', ['example.com', 'test.com'])
  .groupBy('status')
  .groupBy('mime')
  .count('total')
  .filterBy('status', [200, 404])
  .sortBy('total', 'desc')
  .build();

console.log(aqlQuery);

//  GeneratedAqlQuery
//
//  query: 'FOR item IN responses\n' +
//    'FILTER item.url.protocol != @value0\n' +
//    'FILTER item.url.domain IN @value1\n' +
//    'COLLECT\n' +
//    '  status = item.status,\n' +
//    '  mime = item.mime\n' +
//    'WITH COUNT INTO total\n' +
//    'FILTER status IN @value2\n' +
//    'SORT total DESC\n' +
//    'RETURN { status, mime, total }',
//  bindVars: {
//    value0: null,
//    value1: [ 'example.com', 'test.com' ],
//    value2: [ 200, 404 ]
//  }
//}

Manually constructed AqQuery

Queries can also be described in JSON and passed straight to the builder function; the structure below generates a query identical to the chained method approach above.

import { AqQuery, buildQuery } from 'aql-builder';

const aq: AqQuery = {
  collection: 'responses',
  filters: [
    { name: 'url.protocol', eq: null, negate: true },
    { name: 'url.domain', in: ['example.com', 'test.com'] },
    { name: 'status', in: [200, 404], document: false },
  ],
  aggregates: [
    { name: 'status', function: 'collect' },
    { name: 'mime', function: 'collect' },
  ],
  count: 'total',
  sorts: [
    { name: 'total', direction: 'desc' },
  ],
};
const aqlQuery = buildQuery(aq);

Shorthand syntax with AqQuery

Finally, the AqQuery structure supports shorthand versions of common filter, aggregate, sort, and return definitions. For example, return: [{ name: 'prop.name' }] can be written as return: ['prop.name']. These shorthand versions can be mixed and matched as needed.

import { AqQuery, buildQuery } from 'aql-builder';

const aq: AqQuery = {
  collection: 'responses',
  filters: [
    'url.protocol', // Expanded to 'equals null, negated' filter
    { name: 'url.domain', in: ['example.com', 'test.com'] },
    { name: 'status', in: [200, 404], documemt: false },
  ],
  aggregates: ['status', 'mime'], // Expanded to 'collect' aggregates
  count: 'total',
  sorts: ['total'] // Expanded to 'desc' sorts
};
const aqlQuery = buildQuery(aq);

Using them together

AqBuilder can be instantiated with an existing AqQuery object; that makes it possible to store a reusable query in JSON format, set up an AqBuilder instance with it, and customize the query with the builder object's chainable methods.

import { AqQuery, AqBuilder } from 'aql-builder';

const aq: AqQuery = {
  collection: 'responses',
  filters: [
    'url.protocol',
    { name: 'url.domain', in: ['example.com', 'test.com'] },
    { name: 'status', in: [200, 404], documemt: false },
  ],
  aggregates: ['status', 'mime'],
  count: 'total'
};

const query = new AqBuilder(aq)
  .sort('total', 'asc')
  .build();

Advanced features

Although the fluent methods on the AqBuilder class are handy, some types of query structures are only supported with manually-created AqQuery objects:

• Filters that compare two properties, rather than one property to a literal value.
• Subqueries, and filters/aggregations/property assignments that explicitly reference them.
• Assignment of subqueries to custom variables that can be included in the results or used in filters

Examples can be found in INTERNALS.md.

Limitations

As noted above, the AqBuilder class doesn't support the full range of features that are possible with AqQuery, and AqQuery only supports a subset of the full AQL spec. In particular:

• Insert or Update queries. AQL Builder is read-only.
• Use of constructed documents as query sources. Every query requires an existing collection to iterate over.
• Explicit construction of return documents with nested properties. (Though you can return properties that are themselves arrays or objects.)
• Complex AQL functions. While it's possible to sneak certain functions in using 'FUNCTION(foo)" as property path, that trick chokes on any functions that require more than one parameter.
• Explicitly ordering filter/subquery/aggregation functions to optimize queries or control returned results. The closest we get is the distinction between filters and returnFilters that run after aggregation.