Recently Apollo Client released a websocket subscription feature, but so far I've only seen it used by launching a query using subscribeToMore inside the componentWillMount lifecycle hook.
Here is an example taken from https://dev-blog.apollodata.com/tutorial-graphql-subscriptions-client-side-40e185e4be76#0a8f
const messagesSubscription = gql`
subscription messageAdded($channelId: ID!) {
messageAdded(channelId: $channelId) {
id
text
}
}
`
componentWillMount() {
this.props.data.subscribeToMore({
document: messagesSubscription,
variables: {
channelId: this.props.match.params.channelId,
},
updateQuery: (prev, {subscriptionData}) => {
if (!subscriptionData.data) {
return prev;
}
const newMessage = subscriptionData.data.messageAdded;
// don't double add the message
if (!prev.channel.messages.find((msg) => msg.id === newMessage.id)) {
return Object.assign({}, prev, {
channel: Object.assign({}, prev.channel, {
messages: [...prev.channel.messages, newMessage],
})
});
} else {
return prev;
}
}
});
}
But subscribeToMore is specific to Apollo Client React integration. In VanillaJS there is a watchQuery, but it's stated it should not be used for subscriptions. There is also a subscribe that might be what I'm searching for, but is not documented.
Is there any way using Apollo GraphQL client to handle subscriptions, without being inside a React Component?