Recently, I am experimenting Neo4j. I like the idea but I am facing a problem that I have never faced with relational databases.
I want to perform these inserts and then return them exactly in the insertion order.
Insert elements:
create(p1:Person {name:"Marc"})
create(p2:Person {name:"John"})
create(p3:Person {name:"Paul"})
create(p4:Person {name:"Steve"})
create(p5:Person {name:"Andrew"})
create(p6:Person {name:"Alice"})
create(p7:Person {name:"Bob"})
While to return them:
match(p:Person) return p order by id(p)
I receive the elements in the following order:
Paul
Andrew
Marc
John
Steve
Alice
Bob
I note that these elements are not returned respecting the query insertion order (through the id function).
In fact the id of my elements are the following:
Marc: 18221
John: 18222
Paul: 18208
Steve: 18223
Andrew: 18209
Alice: 18224
Bob: 18225
How does the Neo4j id function work? I read that it generates an auto incremental id but it seems a little strange his mechanism. How do I return items respecting the query insertion order? I thought about creating a timestamp attribute for each node but I don't think it's the best choice
If you're looking to generate sequence numbers in Neo4j then you need to manage this yourself using a strategy that works best in your application.
In ours we maintain sequence numbers in key/value pair nodes where Scope is the application name given to the sequence number range, and Value is the last sequence number used. When we generate a node of a given type, such as Product, then we increment the sequence number and assign it to our new node.
MERGE (n:Sequence {Scope: 'Product'})
SET n.Value = COALESCE(n.Value, 0) + 1
WITH n.Value AS seq
CREATE (product:Product)
SET product.UniqueId = seq
With this you can create as many sequence numbers you need just by creating sequence nodes with unique scope names.
For more examples and tests see the AutoInc.Neo4j project https://github.com/neildobson-au/AutoInc/blob/master/src/AutoInc.Neo4j/Neo4jUniqueIdGenerator.cs
The id of Neo4j is maintained internally, which your business code should not depend on.
Generally it's auto incrementally, but if there is delete operation, you may reuse the deleted id according to the Reuse Policy of Neo4j Server.
Related
I am loading simple csv data into neo4j. The data is simple as follows :-
uniqueId compound value category
ACT12_M_609 mesulfen 21 carbon
ACT12_M_609 MNAF 23 carbon
ACT12_M_609 nifluridide 20 suphate
ACT12_M_609 sulfur 23 carbon
I am loading the data from the URL using the following query -
LOAD CSV WITH HEADERS
FROM "url"
AS row
MERGE( t: Transaction { transactionId: row.uniqueId })
MERGE(c:Compound {name: row.compound})
MERGE (t)-[r:CONTAINS]->(c)
ON CREATE SET c.category= row.category
ON CREATE SET r.price =row.value
Next I do the aggregation to count total orders for a compound and create property for a node in the following way -
MATCH (c:Compound) <-[:CONTAINS]- (t:Transaction)
with c.name as name, count( distinct t.transactionId) as ord
set c.orders = ord
So far so good. I can accomplish what I want but I have the following 2 questions -
How can I create the orders property for compound node in the first step itself? .i.e. when I am loading the data I would like to perform the aggregation straight away.
For a compound node I am also setting the property for category. Theoretically, it can also be modelled as category -contains-> compound by creating Categorynode. But what advantage will I have if I do it? Because I can execute the queries and get the expected output without creating this additional node.
Thank you for your answer.
I don't think that's possible, LOAD CSV goes over one row at a time, so at row 1, it doesn't know how many more rows will follow.
I guess you could create virtual nodes and relationships, aggregate those and then use those to create the real nodes, but that would be way more complicated. Virtual Nodes/Rels
That depends on the questions/queries you want to ask.
A graph database is optimised for following relationships, so if you often do a query where the category is a criteria (e.g. MATCH (c: Category {category_id: 12})-[r]-(:Compound) ), it might be more performant to create a label for it.
If you just want to get the category in the results (e.g. RETURN compound.category), then it's fine as a property.
I have 2 csv files which I am trying to load into a Neo4j database using cypher: drivers.csv which holds every formula 1 driver and lap times.csv which stores every lap ever raced in F1.
I have managed to load in all of the nodes, although the lap times file is very large so it took quite a long time! I then tried to add relationships after, but there is so many that needs to be added that I gave up on it waiting (it was taking multiple days and still had not loaded in fully).
I’m pretty sure there is a way to load in the nodes and relationships at the same time, which would allow me to use periodic commit for the relationships which I cannot do right now. Essentially I just need to combine the 2 commands into one and after some attempts I can’t seem to work out how to do it?
// load in the lap_times.csv, changing the variable names - about half million nodes (takes 3-4 days)
PERIODIC COMMIT 25000
LOAD CSV WITH HEADERS from 'file:///lap_times.csv'
AS row
MERGE (lt: lapTimes {raceId: row.raceId, driverId: row.driverId, lap: row.lap, position: row.position, time: row.time, milliseconds: row.milliseconds})
RETURN lt;
// add a relationship between laptimes, drivers and races - takes 3-4 days
MATCH (lt:lapTimes),(d:Driver),(r:race)
WHERE lt.raceId = r.raceId AND lt.driverId = d.driverId
MERGE (d)-[rel8:LAPPING_AT]->(lt)
MERGE (r)-[rel9:TIMED_LAP]->(lt)
RETURN type(rel8), type(rel9)
Thanks in advance for any help!
You should review the documentation for indexes here:
https://neo4j.com/docs/cypher-manual/current/administration/indexes-for-search-performance/
Basically, indexes, once created, allow quick lookups of nodes of a given label, for the given property or properties. If you DON'T have an index and you do a MATCH or MERGE of a node, then for every row of that MATCH or MERGE, it has to do a label scan of all nodes of the given label and check all of their properties to find the nodes, and that becomes very expensive, especially when loading CSVs because those operations are likely happening for each row in the CSV.
For your :lapTimes nodes (though we would recommend you use singular labels in most cases), if there are none of them in your graph to start with, then a CREATE instead of a MERGE is fine. You may want a composite index on :lapTimes(raceId, driverId, lap), since that should uniquely identify the node, if you need to look it up later. Using CREATE instead of MERGE here should process much much faster.
Your second query should be MATCHing on :lapTimes nodes (label scan), and from each doing an index lookup on the :race and :driver nodes, so indexes are key here for performance.
You need indexes on: :race(raceId) and :Driver(driverId).
MATCH (lt:lapTimes)
WITH lt, lt.raceId as raceId, lt.driverId as driverId
MATCH (d:Driver), (r:race)
WHERE r.raceId = raceId AND d.driverId = driverId
MERGE (d)-[:LAPPING_AT]->(lt)
MERGE (r)-[:TIMED_LAP]->(lt)
You might consider CREATE instead of MERGE for the relationships, if you know there are no duplicate entries.
I removed your RETURN because returning the types isn't useful information.
Also, consider using consistent cases for your node labels, and that you are using the same case between the labels in your graph and the indexes you create.
Also, you would probably want to batch these changes instead of trying to process them all at once.
If you install APOC Procedures you can make use of apoc.periodic.iterate(), which can be used to batch changes, which will be faster and easier on your heap. You will still need indexes first.
CALL apoc.periodic.iterate("
MATCH (lt:lapTimes)
WITH lt, lt.raceId as raceId, lt.driverId as driverId
MATCH (d:Driver), (r:race)
WHERE r.raceId = raceId AND d.driverId = driverId
RETURN lt, d, ir",
"MERGE (d)-[:LAPPING_AT]->(lt)
MERGE (r)-[:TIMED_LAP]->(lt)", {}) YIELD batches, total, errorMessages
RETURN batches, total, errorMessages
Single CSV load
If you want to handle everything all at once in a single CSV load, you can do that, but again you will need indexes first. Here's what you'll need at a minimum:
CREATE INDEX ON :Driver(driverId);
CREATE INDEX ON :Race(raceId);
After those are created, you can use this, assuming you are starting from scratch (I fixed the case of your labels and made them singular:
USING PERIODIC COMMIT 25000
LOAD CSV WITH HEADERS from 'file:///lap_times.csv' AS row
MERGE (d:Driver {driverId:row.driverId})
MERGE (r:Race {raceId:row.raceId})
CREATE (lt:LapTime {raceId: row.raceId, driverId: row.driverId, lap: row.lap, position: row.position, time: row.time, milliseconds: row.milliseconds})
CREATE (d)-[:LAPPING_AT]->(lt)
CREATE (r)-[:TIMED_LAP]->(lt)
Is it possible in Neo4j or SDN4 to create/emulate something similar to a PostgreSQL sequence database object?
I need this thread safe functionality in order to be able to ask it for next, unique Long value. I'm going to use this value as a surrogate key for my entities.
UPDATED
I don't want to go with UUID because I have to expose these IDs within my web application url parameters and in case of UUID my urls look awful. I want to go with a plain Long values for IDs like StackOverflow does, for example:
stackoverflow.com/questions/42228501/neo4j-sdn-4-emulate-sequence-objectnot-uuid
This can be done with user procedures and functions. As an example:
package sequence;
import org.neo4j.procedure.*;
import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicInteger;
public class Next {
private static AtomicInteger sequence = new AtomicInteger(0);
#UserFunction
public synchronized Number next() {
return sequence.incrementAndGet();
}
}
The problem of this example is that when the server is restarted the counter will be set to zero.
So it is necessary to keep the last value of the counter. This can be done using these examples:
https://maxdemarzi.com/2015/03/25/triggers-in-neo4j/
https://github.com/neo4j-contrib/neo4j-apoc-procedures/blob/master/src/main/java/apoc/trigger/Trigger.java
No. As far as I'm aware there isn't any similar functionality to sequences or auto increment identifiers in Neo4j. This question has also been asked a few times in the past.
The APOC project might be worth checking out for this though. There seems to be a request to add it.
If your main interest is in having a way to generate unique IDs, and you do not care if the unique IDs are strings, then you should consider using the APOC facilities for generating UUIDs.
There is an APOC function that generates a UUID, apoc.create.uuid. In older versions of APOC, this is a procedure that must be invoked using the CALL syntax. For example, to create and return a single Foo node with a new UUID:
CREATE (f:Foo {uuid: apoc.create.uuid()})
RETURN f;
There is also an APOC procedure, apoc.create.uuids(count), that generates a specified number of UUIDs. For example, to create and return 5 Foo nodes with new UUIDs:
CALL apoc.create.uuids(5) YIELD uuid
CREATE (f:Foo {uuid: uuid})
RETURN f;
The most simplest way in Neo4j is to disable ids reuse and use node Graph ID like sequencer.
https://neo4j.com/docs/operations-manual/current/reference/configuration-settings/
Table A.83. dbms.ids.reuse.types.override
Description: Specified names of id types (comma separated) that should be reused. Currently only 'node' and 'relationship' types are supported.
Valid values: dbms.ids.reuse.types.override is a list separated by "," where items are one of NODE, RELATIONSHIP
Default value: [RELATIONSHIP, NODE]
I realise this may not be ideal usage, but apart from all the graphy goodness of Neo4j, I'd like to show a collection of nodes, say, People, in a tabular format that has indexed properties for sorting and filtering
I'm guessing the Type of a node can be stored as a Link, say Bob -> type -> Person, which would allow us to retrieve all People
Are the following possible to do efficiently (indexed?) and in a scalable manner?
Retrieve all People nodes and display all of their names, ages, cities of birth, etc (NOTE: some of this data will be properties, some Links to other nodes (which could be denormalised as properties for table display's and simplicity's sake)
Show me all People sorted by Age
Show me all People with Age < 30
Also a quick how to do the above (or a link to some place in the docs describing how) would be lovely
Thanks very much!
Oh and if the above isn't a good idea, please suggest a storage solution which allows both graph-like retrieval and relational-like retrieval
if you want to operate on these person nodes, you can put them into an index (default is Lucene) and then retrieve and sort the nodes using Lucene (see for instance How do I sort Lucene results by field value using a HitCollector? on how to do a custom sort in java). This will get you for instance People sorted by Age etc. The code in Neo4j could look like
Transaction tx = neo4j.beginTx();
idxManager = neo4j.index()
personIndex = idxManager.forNodes('persons')
personIndex.add(meNode,'name',meNode.getProperty('name'))
personIndex.add(youNode,'name',youNode.getProperty('name'))
tx.success()
tx.finish()
'*** Prepare a custom Lucene query context with Neo4j API ***'
query = new QueryContext( 'name:*' ).sort( new Sort(new SortField( 'name',SortField.STRING, true ) ) )
results = personIndex.query( query )
For combining index lookups and graph traversals, Cypher is a good choice, e.g.
START people = node:people_index(name="E*") MATCH people-[r]->() return people.name, r.age order by r.age asc
in order to return data on both the node and the relationships.
Sure, that's easily possible with the Neo4j query language Cypher.
For example:
start cat=node:Types(name='Person')
match cat<-[:IS_A]-person-[born:BORN]->city
where person.age > 30
return person.name, person.age, born.date, city.name
order by person.age asc
limit 10
You can experiment with it in our cypher console.
I'm new to Neo4j - just started playing with it yesterday evening.
I've notice all nodes are identified by an auto-incremented integer that is generated during node creation - is this always the case?
My dataset has natural string keys so I'd like to avoid having to map between the Neo4j assigned ids and my own. Is it possible to use string identifiers instead?
Think of the node-id as an implementation detail (like the rowid of relational databases, can be used to identify nodes but should not be relied on to be never reused).
You would add your natural keys as properties to the node and then index your nodes with the natural key (or enable auto-indexing for them).
E..g in the Java API:
Index<Node> idIndex = db.index().forNodes("identifiers");
Node n = db.createNode();
n.setProperty("id", "my-natural-key");
idIndex.add(n, "id",n.getProperty("id"));
// later
Node n = idIndex.get("id","my-natural-key").getSingle(); // node or null
With auto-indexer you would enable auto-indexing for your "id" field.
// via configuration
GraphDatabaseService db = new EmbeddedGraphDatabase("path/to/db",
MapUtils.stringMap(
Config.NODE_KEYS_INDEXABLE, "id", Config.NODE_AUTO_INDEXING, "true" ));
// programmatic (not persistent)
db.index().getNodeAutoIndexer().startAutoIndexingProperty( "id" );
// Nodes with property "id" will be automatically indexed at tx-commit
Node n = db.createNode();
n.setProperty("id", "my-natural-key");
// Usage
ReadableIndex<Node> autoIndex = db.index().getNodeAutoIndexer().getAutoIndex();
Node n = autoIndex.get("id","my-natural-key").getSingle();
See: http://docs.neo4j.org/chunked/milestone/auto-indexing.html
And: http://docs.neo4j.org/chunked/milestone/indexing.html
This should help:
Create the index to back automatic indexing during batch import We
know that if auto indexing is enabled in neo4j.properties, each node
that is created will be added to an index named node_auto_index. Now,
here’s the cool bit. If we add the original manual index (at the time
of batch import) and name it as node_auto_index and enable auto
indexing in neo4j, then the batch-inserted nodes will appear as if
auto-indexed. And from there on each time you create a node, the node
will get indexed as well.**
Source : Identifying nodes with Custom Keys
According Neo docs there should be automatic indexes in place
http://neo4j.com/docs/stable/query-schema-index.html
but there's still a lot of limitations
Beyond all answers still neo4j creates its own ids to work faster and serve better. Please make sure internal system does not conflict between ids then it will create nodes with same properties and shows in the system as empty nodes.
the ID's generated are default and cant be modified by users. user can use your string identifiers as a property for that node.