Subgraphs in blockchain: Diving into Benefits, use cases, deployment, and more
Subgraphs in blockchain are data indexing solutions offered by the Graph protocol. Basically, Subgraph processes bulks of raw blockchain data and convert them into a readable format so that it can be easily queried via GraphQL language. Web3 projects, enterprises, and dApp developers can build their Subgraphs, deploy Subgraph to hosted service, or use the existing Subgraphs–whichever is feasible for them. But, there are some exceptions to Graph’s decentralized network.
Understanding working of Subgraph
Step-by-step flow that explains the entire working of Subgraph in blockchain:
- Decentralized applications submit data to the blockchain via smart contract transactions.
-The smart contract can emit one or multiple events while processing this transaction.
Subgraph constantly scans events on the blockchain and looks for the data relevant to your Subgraph’s schema.
-Whenever any new data is added, the indexing process on Subgraph is triggered, and it runs mapping. The indexing process includes updating the subgraph’s internal data structures to reflect the real-time on-chain data.
-Consumers query data from their Graph Node from the blockchain using the node’s GraphQL endpoint. At this point, Graph Node translates the GraphQL queries into structured data.
-Finally, the dapp displays queried data in a rich UI for end-users, which they can utilize for various purposes, e.g. issuing new transactions. The cycle repeats.
