From 02af0fde955b7e7a3887a75fc6740efbfc5be2e1 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Lee Byron <lee@leebyron.com>
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2015 14:19:29 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] [RFC] Make operation name optional.

Based on feedback from those using GraphQL and inspired by RelayQL's syntax, this makes operation names optional.

The primary value is the ability to express mutations (or eventually subscriptions) without being required to provide a name if the name adds no value for your use case. (Value typically being query disambiguation and logging). Systems which want to enforce a name for queries should have a separate linting/validation rule - such a rule would probably also want to ban "query shorthand"
---
 spec/Appendix B -- Grammar Summary.md |  2 +-
 spec/Section 2 -- Language.md         | 21 +++++++++++++++++----
 2 files changed, 18 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/spec/Appendix B -- Grammar Summary.md b/spec/Appendix B -- Grammar Summary.md
index d541df27d..5a5c644aa 100644
--- a/spec/Appendix B -- Grammar Summary.md	
+++ b/spec/Appendix B -- Grammar Summary.md	
@@ -92,7 +92,7 @@ Definition :
 
 OperationDefinition :
   - SelectionSet
-  - OperationType Name VariableDefinitions? Directives? SelectionSet
+  - OperationType Name? VariableDefinitions? Directives? SelectionSet
 
 OperationType : one of query mutation
 
diff --git a/spec/Section 2 -- Language.md b/spec/Section 2 -- Language.md
index 74fabf906..0d85b2b8b 100644
--- a/spec/Section 2 -- Language.md	
+++ b/spec/Section 2 -- Language.md	
@@ -178,8 +178,8 @@ contain an operation. However documents which do not contain operations may
 still be parsed and validated to allow client to represent a single request
 across many documents.
 
-If a query document contains only one query operation, that operation may be
-represented in the shorthand form, which omits the query keyword and
+If a document contains only one operation, that operation may be unnamed or
+represented in the shorthand form, which omits both the query keyword and
 operation name. Otherwise, if a GraphQL query document contains multiple
 operations, each operation must be named. When submitting a query document with
 multiple operations to a GraphQL service, the name of the desired operation to
@@ -189,7 +189,7 @@ be executed must also be provided.
 ### Operations
 
 OperationDefinition :
-  - OperationType Name VariableDefinitions? Directives? SelectionSet
+  - OperationType Name? VariableDefinitions? Directives? SelectionSet
   - SelectionSet
 
 OperationType : one of `query` `mutation`
@@ -199,7 +199,20 @@ There are two types of operations that GraphQL models:
   * query - a read-only fetch.
   * mutation - a write followed by a fetch.
 
-Each operation is represented by an operation name and a selection set.
+Each operation is represented by an optional operation name and a selection set.
+
+For example, this mutation operation might "like" a story and then retrieve the
+new number of likes:
+
+```
+mutation {
+  likeStory(storyID: 12345) {
+    story {
+      likeCount
+    }
+  }
+}
+```
 
 **Query shorthand**