Is it possible to utilise Node Expansion when returning objects from nodes?

[jonathansandman]

Hi everybody,

I am utilizing Node Expansion (docs). This is a really powerful feature that allows my custom node to return a subgraph of nodes on the fly, taking advantage of the built-in caching functionality in ComfyUI.

However, when returning values from the node:

params = {
    "model": merge_model_node.out(0),
    "clip": merge_clip_node.out(0),
    "vae": checkpoint_node1.out(2)
}

return {
    "result": (params, merge_model_node.out(0), merge_clip_node.out(0), checkpoint_node1.out(2)),
    "expand": graph.finalize(),
}

If I log the returned value from the node, outputs directly in the tuple appear to be correctly expanded, but those in the object are still the raw links, e.g.:

# Example output
(params: {
    "model": ["68.0.0.1", 0],
    "clip": ["72.0.0.1", 0],
    "vae": ["44.0.0.1", 0]
}, Model, CLIP, VAE)

where I would expect:

(params: {
    "model": Model
    "clip": CLIP,
    "vae": VAE
}, Model, CLIP, VAE)

I was hoping that I might be able to utilize Node Expansion and then combine outputs into single object to easily "pipe" it to another node. Is there any way to achieve this?

[devingfx]

Hi!

Disclaimer: I don't know much node expansion, I was searching docs on it when I landed here...

My understanding is that result is not working the same as usual return, it just get links from subgraph outputs, and there is an additional routine to 1) execute the subgraph returned ( in expand ) and then 2) use the given links to make this node outputs as if it was subgraph outputs.
So result maybe a bit misnamed because you can't give it values, but only "future" links...
( If I'm not wrong ) maybe renamming this field into something more obvious like future_links or so.

---

For your case, you can create a small utility node class that takes inputs and outputs a mapping, then use this node in the subgraph, and put its output link in result. ( not tested at all ! )