Upload files from Angular 7 Web App to Apollo 2.0 GraphQL Server

Question

I am trying to upload files with Angular Apollo as Client and Apollo 2.0 as Server.

Trust me, I tried every tutorial, example I could find on the internet but no help. There's a library called apollo-upload-file they have given an example of how to implement it but at the client side they have used React. Although I tried implementing his example but nothing works.

Please help.

Answer 1

Server

In your schema you need to define the file argument as type Upload this is a built in type provided by Apollo

const { gql } = require('apollo-server');

const TypeDef = gql `
  type Mutation {
    upload(file: Upload!)
  }
`

If you are getting an error about type Upload not being a type you can also define it in your schema ( I had this issue )

const { gql } = require('apollo-server');

const TypeDef = gql `
  scalar Upload

  type Mutation {
    upload(file: Upload!)
  }
`

In your revolvers you can access the file in your args, One thing to note is that the file will be a promise;

const resolver = {
        Mutation: {
            async upload(obj, args, context, info) {
                const file = await args.file;
                // ... DO STUFF
            },
        }
}

Client

In the client you need to use the apollo-angular-link-http package to help with file uploads. In the context of the request use need to set useMultipart : true

Query will look something like this

const uploadFileMutation = gql`
  mutation UploadMutation(
    $file: Upload!
  ) {
    upload(file: $file) {
        YOUR RESPONSE
      }
    }
  }
`

The Apollo request will look like this

  constructor(
    private Apollo: Apollo
  ) { }

  fileUpload(file){
    this.Apollo.mutate<any>({
      mutation: uploadFileMutation,
      variables: {
        file: this.file
      },
      context: {
         useMultipart: true
      }
    }).subscribe(({ data }) => {
       this.response = data.upload
    });
   }

I hope this helps or at least gets you on the right track.