Creating relationships taking too long in Neo4j using Neo4php - neo4j

Question

I have been trying to create nodes and relations ships for our new module with neo4jphp [https://github.com/jadell/neo4jphp/wiki].
I am using cypher queries for the same.
Creating nodes with below query:
$queryNodes = "CREATE (n:User { props } ) ";
$query = new Everyman\Neo4j\Cypher\Query($client, $queryNodes, array('props' => $arrNodeProperties));
$result = $query->getResultSet();
Creating relationships with below query:
$queryRelations = "
MATCH (authUser: User { userid: 0001 }),(friend)
WHERE friend.userid IN ['" . implode("','",$relations) . "']
CREATE UNIQUE (authUser)-[r:KNOWS { connection: 'user_friend' }]->(friend)";
So far node creation works gr8.
But when i try to create Unique relationships for the nodes, it takes too long....
Note:
There is unique constraint userid for label User, hence node with label user is indexed by Neo4j on property userid.
CREATE CONSTRAINT ON (user:User) ASSERT user.userid IS UNIQUE
Questions:
Is there any other way we can achieve creating unique relationships.
Can i use index on relationships?? If Yes how can I achieve the same.

Answer 1

You might try use use MERGE instead of CREATE UNIQUE. Additionally use a Cypher parameter for the fried's list instead of concatenation on client side, see http://docs.neo4j.org/chunked/stable/cypher-parameters.html

Answer 2

Finally I worked it out with few changes...
Thanks #MichaelHunger for the help.
So here is how i did it...
Creating Unique Nodes using MERGE, FOREACH, ON CREATE SET and params:
$queryNodes = "
FOREACH (nodeData IN {nodeProperties}|
MERGE (n:User { userid: nodeData.userid })
ON CREATE SET
n.login = nodeData.login,
n.userid = nodeData.userid,
n.username = nodeData.username,
n.name = nodeData.name,
n.gender = nodeData.gender,
n.profile_pic = nodeData.profile_pic,
n.create_date = timestamp()
ON MATCH SET
n.update_date = timestamp()
)
";
$query = new Everyman\Neo4j\Cypher\Query($client, $queryNodes, array('nodeProperties' => $arrNodeProperties));
$result = $query->getResultSet();
Creating Unique Relationships with below query:
$queryRelations = "
MATCH (authUser: User { userid: {authUserid} }), (friend:User)
WHERE friend.userid IN {friendUserIds}
CREATE UNIQUE (authUser)-[r:KNOWS { connection: 'user_friend' }]->(friend)
";
$query = new Everyman\Neo4j\Cypher\Query($client, $queryRelations, array('friendUserIds' => $arrFriendUserId, 'authUserid' => $authUserid));
$result = $query->getResultSet();
Please comment if we can improve the same even further.