Introducing WordExpress Schema — A Sequelized Package for Connecting to WordPress Database

WordExpress Schema on GitHub.

Maybe you’ve been following my progress on WordExpress.io, an open-source project that aims to replace PHP with Javascript in WordPress development but using Node, Express, React, GraphQL and Relay.

If you haven’t, the introduction is a good place to start.

Yesterday I posted the third article in an ongoing series about the project. The article discussed using Sequelize to connect to a WordPress database, and then building GraphQL queries around it.

Welp, I decided to build an NPM package that took care of the entire “connecting to Wordpress” thing. It’s called WordExpress Schema, because it will eventually contain the GraphQL schema as well; right now it just provides an easy connection to a WordPress database, which in turn gives you access to some Sequelize Models and queries. Here’s how it works.

import { WordExpressDatabase } from 'wordexpress-schema';
import { publicSettings, privateSettings } from '../settings/settings';

/*
  Example settings object:
  publicSettings: {
    uploads: "http://wordexpress.s3.amazonaws.com/",
    amazonS3: true
  },
  privateSettings: {
    wp_prefix: "wp_",
    database: {
      name: "wpexpress_dev",
      username: "root",
      password: "",
      host: "127.0.0.1"
    }
  }
*/

const connectionDetails = {
  name: privateSettings.database.name,
  username: privateSettings.database.username,
  password: privateSettings.database.password,
  host: privateSettings.database.host,
  amazonS3: publicSettings.amazonS3,
  uploadDirectory: publicSettings.uploads
}

const Database = new WordExpressDatabase(connectionDetails);
const ConnQueries = Database.queries;
export default ConnQueries;

Aaaaaaand here is how you can use this with GraphQL. Note: the package is GraphQL agnostic right now, so you can use it for lots of things.

const GraphQLUser = new GraphQLObjectType({
  name: "User",
  fields: {
    id: {type: new GraphQLNonNull(GraphQLID)} ,
    settings: {
      type: GraphQLSetting,
      resolve: ()=>{
        return publicSettings
      }
    },
    posts: {
      type: PostsConnection,
      args: {
        post_type: {
          type: GraphQLString,
          defaultValue: 'post'
        },
        ...connectionArgs
      },
      resolve(root, args) {
        return connectionFromPromisedArray( ConnQueries.getPosts(args), args );
      }
    },
    page: {
      type: GraphQLPost,
      args:{
        post_name:{ type: GraphQLString },
      },
      resolve(root, args){
        return ConnQueries.getPostByName(args.post_name);
      }
    },
    menus: {
      type: GraphQLMenu,
      args: {
        name: { type: GraphQLString }
      },
      resolve(root, args) {
        return ConnQueries.getMenu(args.name);
      }
    },
    postmeta: {
      type: PostmetaConnection,
      args: {
        post_id: {
          type: GraphQLInt
        },
        ...connectionArgs
      },
      resolve(root, args){
        return ConnQueries.getPostmeta(args.post_id)
      }
    }
  }
})

const GraphQLRoot = new GraphQLObjectType({
  name: 'Root',
  fields: {
    viewer: {
      type: GraphQLUser,
      resolve: () => {
        return ConnQueries.getViewer();
      }
    }
  }
});

const WordExpressSchema = new GraphQLSchema({
  query: GraphQLRoot
});
export default WordExpressSchema;

Read the documentation for details.

Ramsay Lanier is a Sr. Developer at nclud, a provocative digital agency in Washington, D.C. You can find him on twitter, github, or at &pizza.