GraphQL Filters Not Working in cURL POST Data

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1

Dear GitLab Community,

I’m trying to collect some project related information using GitLab GraphQL API. The following query is working fine using the GraphiQL Explorer:

CASE A) Using GraphiQL UI

Query:

query {projects(search:"aggregatorr") {pageInfo{hasNextPage startCursor endCursor} nodes {id name fullPath}}}

Response:

{
  "data": {
    "projects": {
      "pageInfo": {
        "hasNextPage": false,
        "startCursor": "eyJpZCI6IjI1MTc5MDAwIn0",
        "endCursor": "eyJpZCI6IjI1MTc5MDAwIn0"
      },
      "nodes": [
        {
          "id": "gid://gitlab/Project/25179000",
          "name": "aggregatorr_",
          "fullPath": "quantum_api/gitlab/aggregatorr_"
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

But when I’m trying to do the same request using cURL it responds back with a 400 status code:

CASE B) Using cURL

  curl --verbose "https://gitlab.com/api/graphql" --header "Authorization: Bearer $GRAPHQL_TOKEN" --header "Content-Type: application/json" --request POST --data "{\"query\":\"query {projects(search:\"aggregatorr\") {pageInfo{hasNextPage startCursor endCursor} nodes {fullPath}}}\",\"variables\":null}" > $out_file

cURL Response (verbose, excerpt):

...

* Connection state changed (MAX_CONCURRENT_STREAMS == 256)!
} [130 bytes data]
* We are completely uploaded and fine
< HTTP/2 400 
< date: Tue, 04 May 2021 09:54:00 GMT
< content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8
< content-length: 0
< set-cookie: __cfduid=d34a1369d13e2aa782089fa371bab3e751620122039; expires=Thu, 03-Jun-21 09:53:59 GMT; path=/; domain=.gitlab.com; HttpOnly; SameSite=Lax; Secure
< x-request-id: 01F4VCRXJ8JBSJE9QDXHC5HVZP
< x-runtime: 0.127714
< gitlab-lb: fe-08-lb-gprd
< gitlab-sv: api-29-sv-gprd
< cf-cache-status: DYNAMIC
< cf-request-id: 09d8658dd900000d560e05f000000001
< expect-ct: max-age=604800, report-uri="https://report-uri.cloudflare.com/cdn-cgi/beacon/expect-ct"
< server: cloudflare
< cf-ray: 64a0d85c8e5f0d56-VIE
< 
{ [0 bytes data]
100   130    0     0  100   130      0    218 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--   218
* Connection #0 to host gitlab.com left intact
* Closing connection 0

...

So, either I do a mistake when passing the POST data or maybe the UI adds some necessary cookies/headers required for the filtering, what I would not why.

I also tried using @filename for the cURP POST data instead of escaped JSON and compared the passed data with the payload sent by the GraphiQL Explorer, they were the same.

When sending a cURL request without any filter like search: "test" or pagination, it just works fine, I’m getting a 200 status code and the response data, of course. It only does not work when passing filters.

Do you have any suggestions? Thanks a lot in advance. :slight_smile:

All the best,
Balázs

2

I figured it out. When passing the data to the cURL using the --data-binary @"<data_file_path>" pointing to a stringified JSON, than it works:

JSON payload (e.g. /preproc/test.gql.json):

{
  "query": "query {projects(search:\"test\", first: 3) {pageInfo{hasNextPage, startCursor, endCursor}, nodes {fullPath}}}",
  "variables": null
}

cURL command:

curl --verbose "https://gitlab.com/api/graphql" --header "Authorization: Bearer $GRAPHQL_TOKEN" --header "Content-Type: application/json" --request POST --data-binary "@./preproc/test.gql.json"

Anyway, thanks for the reviews so far! :slight_smile:

Best,
B.

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