Skip to content

Convert AST nodes to frozen dataclasses (70% faster decode, 40% faster parsing)#14

Open
corydolphin wants to merge 8 commits into
fix-parser-type-safetyfrom
convert-ast-to-dataclasses
Open

Convert AST nodes to frozen dataclasses (70% faster decode, 40% faster parsing)#14
corydolphin wants to merge 8 commits into
fix-parser-type-safetyfrom
convert-ast-to-dataclasses

Conversation

@corydolphin
Copy link
Copy Markdown
Owner

Refactor all of the GraphQL AST Nodes to use Python dataclasses to provide
better type safety, immutability guarantees, and cleaner code while maintaining
backwards compatibility with existing APIs.

Benchmark comparison (837f604 base vs dataclasses):

Benchmark Base Dataclass Change
test_parse_large_query 33,108 18,689 44% faster
test_parse_kitchen_sink 577 361 37% faster
test_pickle_large_query_decode 18,520 5,549 70% faster (3x)
test_pickle_large_query_encode 9,038 4,117 54% faster (2x)
test_pickle_large_query_round 28,048 10,206 64% faster (3x)
test_many_repeated_fields 15,918 14,909 6% faster
test_execute_basic_sync 310 292 6% faster
test_execute_basic_async 354 338 5% faster

Thank you for contributing to GraphQL-core!

If your pull-request is non-trivial, adds a feature or contains a non-breaking change, then please, first open an issue to discuss the proposed changes and add a link to that issue.

GraphQL-core tries very hard to stay within the scope of being just a Python port of GraphQL.js.

Any additional feature or incompatible change will be only accepted in rare cases and requires a compelling reason, because they aggravate maintenance and synchronization with the developments in the upstream project. So please discuss such changes upfront in an issue before sending a PR. Maybe there are other ways to solve the problem.

If possible, also add unit tests, or provide runnable example code as part of the accompanying issue, from which unit tests can be derived.

…r parsing)

Refactor all of the GraphQL AST Nodes to use Python dataclasses to provide
better type safety, immutability guarantees, and cleaner code while maintaining
backwards compatibility with existing APIs.

Benchmark comparison (837f604 base vs dataclasses):

| Benchmark                       |   Base |  Dataclass | Change          |
|---------------------------------|--------|------------|-----------------|
| test_parse_large_query          | 33,108 |     18,689 | 44% faster      |
| test_parse_kitchen_sink         |    577 |        361 | 37% faster      |
| test_pickle_large_query_decode  | 18,520 |      5,549 | 70% faster (3x) |
| test_pickle_large_query_encode  |  9,038 |      4,117 | 54% faster (2x) |
| test_pickle_large_query_round   | 28,048 |     10,206 | 64% faster (3x) |
| test_many_repeated_fields       | 15,918 |     14,909 | 6% faster       |
| test_execute_basic_sync         |    310 |        292 | 6% faster       |
| test_execute_basic_async        |    354 |        338 | 5% faster       |
@corydolphin corydolphin force-pushed the convert-ast-to-dataclasses branch from 88ec2f4 to 6e52ed0 Compare January 7, 2026 05:20
corydolphin and others added 7 commits January 8, 2026 14:20
Introduce benchmarks using a large GraphQL query to measure
parse and pickle serialization performance. These provide a baseline
for comparing serialization approaches in subsequent commits.
…thon#251)

Prepares AST for immutability by using tuples instead of lists for
collection fields. This aligns with the JavaScript GraphQL library
which uses readonly arrays, and enables future frozen datastructures.
Python 3.9 reached end-of-life October 2025.
Python 3.10 adoption is now mainstream.

The stable branch still supports the old versions.

Type hints and code still need to be adapted.
Modifies the AST visitor to use copy-on-write semantics when applying
edits. Instead of mutating nodes in place, the visitor now creates new
node instances with the edited values. This prepares for frozen AST
nodes while maintaining backwards compatibility.

The visitor accumulates edits and applies them by constructing new
nodes, enabling the transition to immutable data structures.
- Update test_visitor.py to properly type-annotate the visitor class attribute
  and add assertion before using selection_set
- Update test_schema_parser.py to use more precise types that match GraphQL spec:
  - NonNullTypeNode's inner type can only be NamedTypeNode or ListTypeNode
  - Schema definitions use ConstDirectiveNode, not DirectiveNode
  - Default values use ConstValueNode, not ValueNode
  - OperationTypeDefinition's type_ must be NamedTypeNode
Fixes a number of type-safety issues which would be
revealed when we make the AST nodes strictly typed.
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

None yet

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

2 participants