Complex where with HAS condition

[DrPowerSlam]

Hello!

I have a question regarding relation conditions in a HAS object for complex wheres.

Given the following query:

{
  drivers(
    where: {
      OR: [
        {HAS: {relation: "employee", condition: {column: NAME, value: "Peter"}}},
        {column: ID, operator: EQ, value: "6217"}
      ]
    }
  ) {
    data {
      id
      name
      employee {
        name
      }
    }
  }
}

The intend here is to find all drivers that have a related employee with name Peter OR the driver ID of 6217.

However, the column field inside the HAS object uses the enum type for the where conditions for drivers, named DriverColumn (so for example, where.OR.HAS.condition.column argument is the same GraphQL type as the where.OR.column argument).

By coincidence, both database tables have a name column, so in this case it will correctly resolve the query. But in theory I could use a column enum value that exists for drivers only, but not for employees, in which case it wouldn't be able to find the correct drivers.

Am I misusing the HAS condition, or is it expected to be used it in another way? Or would it make more sense for that column argument to just be String input, instead of an enum input?

For good measure, here's my schema definition for the drivers query and the DriverColumn enum type.

    "List multiple drivers."
    drivers(
        orderBy: _ @orderBy(columnsEnum: "DriverColumn")
        where: _ @whereConditions(columnsEnum: "DriverColumn")
        hasEmployee: _ @whereHasConditions(columns: [
            "name"
        ])
    ): [Driver!]! @paginate(defaultCount: 10)

enum DriverColumn {
    ID @enum(value: "id")
    USERNAME @enum(value: "username")
    NAME @enum(value: "name")
    NOTE @enum(value: "note")
    COMPANY_ID @enum(value: "company_id")
}

[spawnia]

Hi @DrPowerSlam,

You've identified a legitimate design limitation in the current implementation. You're correct that the column field inside HAS conditions uses the parent model's column enum rather than the related model's enum.

Why this happens:

In WhereConditionsServiceProvider::createHasConditionsInputType(), the condition field recursively references the same parent input type:

condition: {$name}  // Uses the parent WHERE input type

This means for your query, the HAS condition's column field is typed as DriverColumn, even though you're actually filtering the employees relation.

Current workaround:

Don't specify columnsEnum (or columns) on the directive. This makes the column field accept String instead of an enum, allowing you to reference any column:

drivers(where: _ @whereConditions): [Driver!]! @all

Then you can use:

where: {
  HAS: {
    relation: "employees"
    condition: { column: "name", value: "Peter" }  # String literal
  }
}

Ideal solution:

The directive would need to be enhanced to dynamically resolve the column enum based on the relation name, but this would require significant schema generation changes since the relation name is only known at query time, not schema build time.

This might be worth filing as a feature request if the workaround doesn't meet your needs!

[DrPowerSlam]

The directive would need to be enhanced to dynamically resolve the column enum based on the relation name, but this would require significant schema generation changes since the relation name is only known at query time, not schema build time.

Now that we've added the string option to the relation columns, could we as a middle-ground add something like a key-value pair of relation-enumType pairs?

So it could look something like:

    "List multiple drivers."
    drivers(
        orderBy: _ @orderBy(columnsEnum: "DriverColumn")
        where: _ @whereConditions(columnsEnum: "DriverColumn", relationEnums: [[relation: "employee", enum: "EmployeeColumns"]]) //Missing relation-enum pair defaults to String
        hasEmployee: _ @whereHasConditions(columns: [
            "name"
        ])
    ): [Driver!]! @paginate(defaultCount: 10)

enum DriverColumn {
    ID @enum(value: "id")
    USERNAME @enum(value: "username")
    NAME @enum(value: "name")
    NOTE @enum(value: "note")
    COMPANY_ID @enum(value: "company_id")
}

input RelationEnumPair {
  relation: String!
  enum: String!
}

That way we don't have to solve the problem of needing auto-generating schema right now, but can let the programmer fill it out at the beginning.