Querying with Orbital

Orbital focuses on querying for data based on it’s meaning, rather than which system provides it. This allows services to change, and data to move, without requiring consumers to update their queries.

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Writing queries

Queries are written in TaxiQL, an open source query language for data.

TaxiQL is agnostic of where data comes from - it’s left to Orbital to discover data from the various sources that have been connected.

Here’s some sample queries:

// Find all the movies
find { Movie[] }

// Find all the movies, enriching and projecting them to a different structure
find { Movie[] } as {
   title : MovieTitle
   director : DirectorName
   rating : RottenTomatoesScore
}[]

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Projections

Projections are a way of taking data from one place, then transforming & combining it with other data sources.

Orbital uses the information present on the object being projected in order to call services and find other information.

You can project from a pre-defined type to another predefined type - such as:

model Purchase {
   transactionId : TransactionId
   customerId : CustomerId
}
model CustomerTransaction {
  transactionId : TransactionId
  name : CustomerName
  price : Price
}

find { Purchases[] } as CustomerTransaction[] 

It’s also very common to project from a predefined type to a type defined inline within your query (called ‘anonymous types’). e.g.:

model Purchase {
   transactionId : TransactionId
   customerId : CustomerId
}

find { Purchases[] }
as {
  // Projections let you change field names, and reshape objects as required
  txn: TransactionId
  // Not present on the original Purchase object, so try to
  // find it using something we already know (in this case, the CustomerId)
  customerName: CustomerName
}[]

​

Projection scopes

Creating a projection requires the syntax something as { ... }, which defines a projection scope:

find { Customer } as { // start a projection scope, containing a customer
   // ... omitted ...
}

If you’re projecting an array, then each item within the array is projected separately:

find { Customer[] } as { // start a projection scope. 
   // Within the scope, each item is an individual Customer instance
   firstName : FirstName
}[] // Be sure to include the array marker at the end, as the object is an array.

If you need to, you can assign a name to the item within the scope. This can be useful for nested scopes, or controlling inputs into a function. e.g.:

find { Customer[] } as (customer:Customer) -> {
   // referencing a field by it's name on Customer
   firstName : upperCase(customer.firstName)
   // referencing as field by it's type on Customer
   lastName : upperCase(customer::LastName)

   // using a variable within a constraint:
   purchases: Purchase[](CustomerId == customer::CustomerId)
   // without referring to a variable, Age is resolved against all variables in scope
   age : Age  
}[]

Or, when using nested scopes:

find { Customer[] } as (customer:Customer) -> {
  name : CustomerName
  orders : Order[] as (order:Order) -> {
     ageAppropriate : Boolean = customer.age >= order.recommendedAge
  }
}

Or, to provide inputs into functions:

model Film {
   title : FilmTitle inherits String
   headliner : ActorId
   cast: Actor[]
}

find { Film[] } as (film:Film) -> {
   title : FilmTitle
   // singleBy selects a single item from
   // an array (film.cast, an array of Actor), that matches a predicate
   // (in this case, there the actor ID is the same as the headliner id)
   star : singleBy(film.cast, (Actor) -> Actor::ActorId, film.headliner) as (actor:Actor) -> {
      name : actor.name
      title : film.title
   }
}[]

​

Using variables to modify what's in scope

By default, the scope contains the entire source object. e.g.:

model Film {
  title : Title
  cast : Actor[]
}

find { Film ) as { 
   // this scope contains an entire film record
}

You can modify this by specifying the type of the variable in scope:

find { Film } as (Actor[]) -> { // note that film has been removed from the scope...
  title : Title //... therfore title isn't knowable -- this field will return null
  actorName : ActorName
}[]

You can also use functions to further reduce the scope:

find { Film } as (first(Actor[])) -> {
   // Now, the scope only contains a single actor
   headliner : ActorName
} //  We're not projecting an array anymore, so no aray marker here

Finally, if the data defined in the scope isn’t available on the source, Orbital triggers a query to find it. e.g.:

// Define a few models
model Film {
   id : FilmId inherits Int
   title : Title inherits String
}
model Actor {
   name : ActorName inherits String
}
model Cast {
   actors : Actor[]
}

// And some services that return them
service Films {
   operation getFilm():Film
   operation getCast(FilmId):Cast
}


// Here's a query:
find { Film } as (Actor[]) -> {
  actorName : Name
  filmTitle : Title // should be null, as it's out-of-scope on Actor
}[]

In the above query:

• getFilm() is called, to fetch the Film
• The projection requests an Actor[] in the scope, which isn’t available, so…
  • A call to getCast() is made, passing the FilmId to fetch the Actor[]
  • Because it’s an array, each Actor within the array of Actor[] is projected individually
  • actorName is read from the name field on Actor, because the requested field asks for the type Name
  • filmTitle is out-of-scope, so returned as null

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Declaring multiple variables in scope

In the previous example, we saw that filmTitle was returned as null, because the Film was removed from scope.

To run the same query with Film in scope, simply add it to the projection:

find { Film } as (Film, Actor[]) -> {
  actorName : Name
  filmTitle : Title // Title is now discoverable, as Film is in scope
}[]

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Data discovery rules

When projecting, Orbital will use information present on the source object to discover data on the target object.

Data can be fetched from a single operation that returns the value, or by invoking a chain of operations to return the value.

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Operations with @Id fields on return types

If the result of an operation is an object that exposes an @Id field, then only operations which accept that @Id field as an input will be called. e.g.:

model Customer {
  @Id customerId : CustomerId
  name : CustomerName
}

service CustomerService {
   // Can be called when projecting, because
   // Person has an @Id of type PersonId
   findCustomer(CustomerId):Customer

   // Cannot be called when projecting, because
   // Person has an @Id, and it isn't PersonName
   findCustomerByName(CustomerName):Customer
}

​

Operations without @Id fields on return types

If the result of an operation is an object that does not expose an @Id field, then it can be called with any information available.

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Filling in nulls

By default, if a service returns a null value, Orbital will accept it as-is.

However, if query annotates a field on a projection type with @FirstNotEmpty, Orbital will attempt to populate values by invoking operations to populate the missing values.

Orbital will execute a search using the other values present on the entity being projected as potential inputs to operations, and build a path to populate the missing values.

Operations are invoked following the standard Data Discovery Rules

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Understanding caching in Orbital

By default, Orbital does not maintain a long-lived cache between operations, but you can add one by configuring an external cache - such as Redis or Hazelcast.

Without an external cache, Orbital caches operation calls for the lifetime of a query. This prevents the same operation being invoked repeatedly while projecting multiple rows in a result.

When caching, Responses are cached for a given operation + set of inputs. If an operation is invoked with different parameters, the cache is not used.

Operations that return an array of results, which return more than 10 values, will not have their responses cached. (This is not currently configurable, but reach out on slack if you need to configure this).

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Recovering from failure

If an operation returns an error while Orbital is attempting to execute a query, then it is excluded from being invoked with the same parameters again. This exclusion is scoped to the query only, and expires at the end of the query.

After excluding the operation, Orbital will attempt to find another path to return the value being discovered.

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Expressions in queries

Taxi allows the definition of expressions on both types and fields, but doesn’t provide an evaluation engine - that’s where Orbital comes in.

Typically, expressions are used in a projection within a query.

You can also use them on a model to expose derived information when a model is parsed by Orbital (eg., when return from a service) - but that’s less common. So, while documentation here focuses on query projections, you can do everything here on a model too.

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Writing an expression in a projection

Expressions can be defined in the fields of a projected result from a query:

find { Flights[] }
as {
  flightNumber : FlightNumber
  totalSeatsAvailable : TotalSeats
  soldSeats : SoldSeats
  remainingSeats : Int = (this.totalSeatsAvailable - this.soldSeats)
}

Expressions can be defined in two ways - on a field, or on a type.

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Expressions on a field

// Expression types on a field:
find { Flights[] }
as {
  flightNumber : FlightNumber
  totalSeatsAvailable : TotalSeats
  soldSeats : SoldSeats
  // field expressions can be defined EITHER using field references...
  remainingSeats : Int = (this.totalSeatsAvailable - this.soldSeats)
  // ...or type references...
  remainingSeats : Int = (TotalSeats - SoldSeats)
}

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Expressions on a type

To encapsulate common expressions, you can define a type with the expression:

// Expression type:
type RemainingSeats = TotalSeats - SoldSeats

// Which is then used on a projection:
find { Flights[] }
as {
  flightNumber : FlightNumber
  totalSeatsAvailable : TotalSeats
  soldSeats : SoldSeats
  remainingSeats : RemainingSeats
}

Unlike field expressions, type expression cannot use field names, and can only reference other types.

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How Orbital discovers values to evaluate expressions

When Orbital is evaluating an expression, it first looks on the source object being projected for the input values into the expression.

If any inputs are not available, then Orbital will perform a search using the current data available on the source object in an attempt to look up the value.

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Submitting queries

Generally, developers will use the UI to write and test their queries, then integrate using Orbital’s rest API.

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Rest API

Queries to Orbital are submitted to the /api/taxiql endpoint:

curl 'http://localhost:9022/api/taxiql' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/taxiql' \
  --data-raw 'find { Movie[] }'

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A word about content type

Strictly speaking, the content type for taxiql queries is application/taxiql. However, the Orbital server will accept taxiql queries with any of the following content types headers:

• Content-Type: application/json
• Content-Type: application/taxiql
• Content-Type: text/plain

This is to allow broad compatability with clients.

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Large queries with Server Sent Events

Running large queries can result in out-of-memory errors if Orbital is holding the result set in memory.

To address this, Orbital supports pushing results over server-sent-events. To consume a query as a server-sent-event, set the Accept header to text/event-stream:

curl 'http://localhost:9022/api/taxiql' \
  -H 'Accept: text/event-stream' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/taxiql' \
  --data-raw 'find { Movie[] }'

Results are pushed out from Orbital as they are available.

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Including type metadata in responses

Orbital can include type metadata in the responses being sent back.

To enable this, append ?resultMode=TYPED to the API call:

curl 'http://localhost:9022/api/taxiql?resultMode=TYPED' \
  -H 'Accept: text/event-stream' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/taxiql' \
  --data-raw 'find { Movie[] }'

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Defining output formats

By default, Orbital serves results to queries as JSON.

This can be configured to customize the result format.

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With Accept headers

The following accept headers are supported:

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Controlling output formats

By default, data is written in JSON format.

However, this can be controlled by placing an annotation on the model defining the output of a query.

For example:

import com.orbitalhq.formats.Csv

@Csv(delimiter = "|", nullValue = "NULL")
model Person {
   firstName : FirstName inherits String
   lastName : LastName inherits String
   age : Age inherits Int
}

// Query:
// Response type (Person) contains a Csv format defined,
// which will be considered when writing responses.
find { Customer[] }
as { Person[] }

The following formats are supported:

• Csv
• Xml
• Protobuf
• Avro

If you need a custom format that’s not listed here, read about Orbital’s support for custom model formats