Skip to main content

Community.HotChocolate.Data.Grouping

A type-safe GROUP BY aggregation library for HotChocolate GraphQL.

Grouping enables SQL GROUP BY semantics directly in your GraphQL schema.

The key selection set defines the grouping dimensions, aggregate carries the per-bucket numbers, and having filters the buckets, all in one round-trip that translates to a single database query.

query {
  employeeGrouping(where: { active: { eq: true } }) {       # filter rows before GROUP BY
    key {
      company { name }
      department { name }
    }
    count(having: { gt: 1 })                                # drop singleton buckets
    aggregate {
      salary { avg sum min max(having: { gte: 90000 }) }    # keep buckets whose max salary >= 90k
      bonus  { avg }
    }
  }
}
{
  "data": {
    "employeeGrouping": [
      {
        "key": { "company": { "name": "Acme" }, "department": { "name": "Engineering" } },
        "count": 2,
        "aggregate": {
          "salary": { "avg": 90000, "sum": 180000, "min": 80000, "max": 100000 },
          "bonus":  { "avg": 10000 }
        }
      },
      {
        "key": { "company": { "name": "Globex" }, "department": { "name": "Engineering" } },
        "count": 2,
        "aggregate": {
          "salary": { "avg": 92500, "sum": 185000, "min": 90000, "max": 95000 },
          "bonus":  { "avg": 5000 }
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

The library follows familiar SQL semantics on top of any IQueryable. count is always the row count of the bucket, putting a collection in key flattens like a JOIN, and the schema rejects combinations that would silently change which buckets you get back.

Quick Start

services
    .AddGraphQL()
    .AddFiltering()
    .AddGrouping()
    .AddQueryType<Query>();
 
public class Query
{
    [UseGrouping]
    [UseFiltering]
    public IQueryable<Employee> GetEmployeeGrouping(MyDbContext db) => db.Employees;
}

That's it. The schema gains employeeGrouping(where, filterNullParent) returning [EmployeeGrouping!]! with key + aggregate. See Quick Start for the walkthrough or Design Decisions for the rationale.

Key Features

  • Schema-driven type safety: every operation a field exposes and every having predicate is determined by its scalar type; invalid combinations are unrepresentable in the schema rather than discovered at runtime
  • Selection-driven: key { ... } defines the grouping dimensions; no groupBy argument required
  • Field-first aggregates: salary { avg sum min max }
  • Per-operation HAVING: salary { sum(having: { gt: 100000 }) } filters buckets server-side
  • Nested grouping: group by navigation properties, including across collection navigations
  • Multi-source: any IQueryable provider; in-memory, EF Core, and MongoDB are tested against every query
  • Convention-based: custom scalar types registered via a fluent convention API