Directives

Directives in Dgraph Query Language (DQL) are special annotations that modify how queries are executed or how results are formatted. They are prefixed with the @ symbol and can be applied to query blocks or predicates to change their behavior.

Directives provide powerful control over:

Filtering: Apply conditions to filter nodes in query results
Response structure: Format and organize query results
Graph traversal: Control how the graph is explored
Pattern matching: Filter results based on complete query structure
Aggregation: Group and aggregate data

Available Directives

@filter: Applies additional filtering conditions to nodes in query blocks using functions and boolean operators.
@normalize: Flattens the response structure by removing nesting and returning only aliased predicates.
@cascade: Filters out nodes that don’t match all predicates specified in the query at any nested level, enabling pattern matching behavior.
@recurse: Performs recursive graph traversal, following relationships to explore paths of variable depth.
@ignorereflex: Ignores reflexive edges (edges that point back to the same node) during graph traversal.
@groupby: Groups query results based on specified predicates and allows aggregation functions to be applied to each group.

Directives can be combined in a single query to achieve complex querying and result formatting requirements.