What is the purpose of registerEnumType if enums are already working without it ?

[Bradzer]

The docs recommend using registerEnumType to work with enums.
However, even without using registerEnumType my enums are already working as expected.

So I wonder what is the purpose of registerEnumType.

Or was it working because apollo somehow resolves things behind the scenes ?

[MichalLytek]

Without registerEnumType, the generated GQL type would be String or Float (depending on the enum type), rather than the ENUM we are aiming for.

https://typegraphql.com/docs/enums.html#using-enum

[Bradzer]

Thank you for your quick response @MichalLytek.

Here is the schema I got without using registerEnumType. My enum AccessStatus does not show as String or Float like I would expect when not using registerEnumType.

GraphQLSchema {
  __validationErrors: [],
  description: undefined,
  extensions: undefined,
  astNode: undefined,
  extensionASTNodes: [],
  _queryType: Query,
  _mutationType: Mutation,
  _subscriptionType: undefined,
  _directives: [ @include, @skip, @deprecated, @specifiedBy ],
  _typeMap: [Object: null prototype] {
    Query: Query,
    UserResponse: UserResponse,
    User: User,
    ID: ID,
    String: String,
    Boolean: Boolean,
    Access: Access,
    AccessStatus: AccessStatus,
    Space: Space,
    Timestamp: Timestamp,
    Float: Float,
    Mutation: Mutation,
    SpaceResponse: SpaceResponse,
    RegisterArgs: RegisterArgs,
    LoginArgs: LoginArgs,
    __Schema: __Schema,
    __Type: __Type,
    __TypeKind: __TypeKind,
    __Field: __Field,
    __InputValue: __InputValue,
    __EnumValue: __EnumValue,
    __Directive: __Directive,
    __DirectiveLocation: __DirectiveLocation
  },
  _subTypeMap: [Object: null prototype] {},
  _implementationsMap: [Object: null prototype] {}
}

[Bradzer]

@MichalLytek
Oh it seems like the registerEnumType was well hidden in the code base 😅:

registerEnumType(AccessStatus, {
  name: "AccessStatus",
});