graphprotocol / graphprotocol/graph-node
[Bug] Ordering by children can be nondeterministic
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- Dominant language
- Rust
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Description
Bug report
With a schema like
type Parent @entity {
id: Bytes!
child: Child!
}
type Child @entity {
id: Bytes!
}
the result for a query like
query { parents(orderBy: child__id) } { id } }
is nondeterministic if multiple parents point to the same child. To make this entirely clear, assume there is only one instance of Child. The SQL query that gets generated is roughly
select *
from parent p
left join child c on (c.id = p.child)
where ...
order by c.id
But when multiple rows in p have the same p.child, that ordering is ill-defined. We'd need to change that to order by c.id, p.id to make that deterministic.
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
No file or test is named in the issue. Reproduce the GraphQL query with multiple parents pointing to one child, inspect the generated SQL ordering, and trace the query-generation entry point responsible for child__id ordering. Done means equivalent results are deterministic when joined child values tie, while preserving the requested ordering.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- graphql, rust, sql
- Domain
- backend-api-design, databases
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 42/100