Neo4j duplicate relationship - neo4j

Question

I have duplicate relationships between nodes e.g:
(Author)-[:CONNECTED_TO {weight: 1}]->(Coauthor)
(Author)-[:CONNECTED_TO {weight: 1}]->(Coauthor)
(Author)-[:CONNECTED_TO {weight: 1}]->(Coauthor)
and I want to merge these relations into one relation of the form: A->{weight: 3} B for my whole graph.
I tried something like the following; (I'm reading the data from a csv file)
MATCH (a:Author {authorid: csvLine.author_id}),(b:Coauthor { coauthorid: csvLine.coauthor_id})
CREATE UNIQUE (a)-[r:CONNECTED_TO]-(b)
SET r.weight = coalesce(r.weight, 0) + 1
But when I start this query, ıt creates duplicate coauthor nodes. The weight will update. It seems like this:
(Author)-[r:CONNECTED_TO]->(Coauthor)
( It creates 3 same coauthor nodes for the author)

Answer 1

If you need to fix it after the fact, you could aggregate all of the relationships and the weight between each set of applicable nodes. Then update the first relationship with the new aggregated number. Then with the collection of relationships delete the second through the last. Perform the update only where there is more than one relationship. Something like this...
MATCH (a:Author {name: 'A'})-[r:CONNECTED_TO]->(b:CoAuthor {name: 'B'})
// aggregate the relationships and limit it to those with more than 1
WITH a, b, collect(r) AS rels, sum(r.weight) AS new_weight
WHERE size(rels) > 1
// update the first relationship with the new total weight
SET (rels[0]).weight = new_weight
// bring the aggregated data forward
WITH a, b, rels, new_weight
// delete the relationships 1..n
UNWIND range(1,size(rels)-1) AS idx
DELETE rels[idx]
If you are doing it for the whole graph and the graph is expansive you may want to perm the update it in batches using limit or some other control mechanism.
MATCH (a:Author)-[r:CONNECTED_TO]->(b:CoAuthor)
WITH a, b, collect(r) AS rels, sum(r.weight) AS new_weight
LIMIT 100
WHERE size(rels) > 1
SET (rels[0]).weight = new_weight
WITH a, b, rels, new_weight
UNWIND range(1,size(rels)-1) AS idx
DELETE rels[idx]
If you want to eliminate the problem when loading...
MATCH (a:Author {authorid: csvLine.author_id}),(b:Coauthor { coauthorid: csvLine.coauthor_id})
MERGE (a)-[r:CONNECTED_TO]->(b)
ON CREATE SET r.weight = 1
ON MATCH SET r.weight = coalesce(r.weight, 0) + 1
Side Note: not really knowing your data model, I would consider modelling CoAuthor as Author as they are likely authors in their own right. It is probably only in the context of a particular project they would be considered a coauthor.