How do I handle deletes in react-apollo

All those answers assume query-oriented cache management.

What if I remove user with id 1 and this user is referenced in 20 queries across the entire app? Reading answers above, I'd have to assume I will have to write code to update the cache of all of them. This would be terrible in long-term maintainability of the codebase and would make any refactoring a nightmare.

The best solution in my opinion would be something like apolloClient.removeItem({__typeName: "User", id: "1"}) that would:

• replace any direct reference to this object in cache to null
• filter out this item in any [User] list in any query

But it doesn't exist (yet)

It might be great idea, or it could be even worse (eg. it might break pagination)

There is interesting discussion about it: https://github.com/apollographql/apollo-client/issues/899

I would be careful with those manual query updates. It looks appetizing at first, but it won't if your app will grow. At least create a solid abstraction layer at top of it eg:

• next to every query you define (eg. in the same file) - define function that clens it properly eg

const MY_QUERY = gql``;

// it's local 'cleaner' - relatively easy to maintain as you can require proper cleaner updates during code review when query will change
export function removeUserFromMyQuery(apolloClient, userId) {
  // clean here
}

and then, collect all those updates and call them all in final update

function handleUserDeleted(userId, client) {
  removeUserFromMyQuery(userId, client)
  removeUserFromSearchQuery(userId, client)
  removeIdFrom20MoreQueries(userId, client)
}

I am not sure it is good practise style but here is how I handle the deletion of an item in react-apollo with updateQueries:

import { graphql, compose } from 'react-apollo';
import gql from 'graphql-tag';
import update from 'react-addons-update';
import _ from 'underscore';


const SceneCollectionsQuery = gql `
query SceneCollections {
  myScenes: selectedScenes (excludeOwner: false, first: 24) {
    edges {
      node {
        ...SceneCollectionScene
      }
    }
  }
}`;


const DeleteSceneMutation = gql `
mutation DeleteScene($sceneId: String!) {
  deleteScene(sceneId: $sceneId) {
    ok
    scene {
      id
      active
    }
  }
}`;

const SceneModifierWithStateAndData = compose(
  ...,
  graphql(DeleteSceneMutation, {
    props: ({ mutate }) => ({
      deleteScene: (sceneId) => mutate({
        variables: { sceneId },
        updateQueries: {
          SceneCollections: (prev, { mutationResult }) => {
            const myScenesList = prev.myScenes.edges.map((item) => item.node);
            const deleteIndex = _.findIndex(myScenesList, (item) => item.id === sceneId);
            if (deleteIndex < 0) {
              return prev;
            }
            return update(prev, {
              myScenes: {
                edges: {
                  $splice: [[deleteIndex, 1]]
                }
              }
            });
          }
        }
      })
    })
  })
)(SceneModifierWithState);

Here is a similar solution that works without underscore.js. It is tested with react-apollo in version 2.1.1. and creates a component for a delete-button:

import React from "react";
import { Mutation } from "react-apollo";

const GET_TODOS = gql`
{
    allTodos {
        id
        name
    }
}
`;

const DELETE_TODO = gql`
  mutation deleteTodo(
    $id: ID!
  ) {
    deleteTodo(
      id: $id
    ) {
      id
    }
  }
`;

const DeleteTodo = ({id}) => {
  return (
    <Mutation
      mutation={DELETE_TODO}
      update={(cache, { data: { deleteTodo } }) => {
        const { allTodos } = cache.readQuery({ query: GET_TODOS });
        cache.writeQuery({
          query: GET_TODOS,
          data: { allTodos: allTodos.filter(e => e.id !== id)}
        });
      }}
      >
      {(deleteTodo, { data }) => (
        <button
          onClick={e => {
            deleteTodo({
              variables: {
                id
              }
            });
          }}
        >Delete</button>            
      )}
    </Mutation>
  );
};

export default DeleteTodo;