I'd like to combine two requests into one query and I'm not sure what happens when 2 match statements are used in a single cypher query.
say I have a list of friends and I'd like to see a list of my friends with each of their uncles and siblings listed in a collection. Can I have two match statements that would do the job? e.g.
match friends-[:childOf]->parents-[:brother]->uncles
, friends-[:childOf]->parents<-[:childOf]-siblings
return friends, collect(siblings), collect(uncles)
However, if I do a query like this, it always returns no results.
Since you have already chosen parents in your first match class, you can do like this -
match friends-[:childOf]->parents-[:brother]->uncles
with friends, parents, uncles
match parents<-[:childOf]-siblings
return friends, collect(siblings), collect(uncles)
You may want to make some of those relationships optional. For example, if you find a sibling but you don't find any uncles, this query will return null because it didn't satisfy both match clauses. If you make the end relationships optional then you don't have to satisfy both clauses completely to return data. So:
match friends-[:childOf]->parents-[?:brother]->uncles
, friends-[:childOf]->parents<-[?:childOf]-siblings
return friends, collect(siblings), collect(uncles)
Related
I have a database in which I have Entity nodes, User nodes, and a couple of relationships including LIKES, POSTED_BY. I'm trying to write a query to achieve this objective:
Find all Entity nodes that a particular user LIKES or those that have been POSTED_BY that User
Note that I have simplified my query - in real I have a bunch of other conditions similar to the above.
I'm trying to use a COLLECT clause to aggregate the list of all Entity nodes, and build on that line by line.
MATCH (e)<-[:LIKES]-(me:User{id: 'rJVbpcqzf'} )
WITH me, COLLECT(e) AS all_entities
MATCH (e)-[:POSTED_BY]->(me)
WITH me, all_entities + COLLECT(e) AS all_entities
UNWIND all_entities AS e
WITH DISTINCT e
RETURN e;
This seems to be returning the correct list ONLY if there is at least one Entity that the user has liked (i.e., if the first COLLECT returns a non-empty list). However, if there is no Entity that I have liked, the entire query returns empty.
Any suggestions on what I'm missing here?
Use OPTIONAL MATCH:
MATCH (me:User {id: 'rJVbpcqzf'})
OPTIONAL MATCH (me)-[:LIKES|POSTED_BY]->(e)
RETURN collect(DISTINCT e) AS all_entities
Notes:
Instead of collecting and unwinding, you can simply use DISTINCT. You can also use DISTINCT with collect.
You can also use multiple relationship types, i.e. the LIKES|POSTED_BY for the relationship type here.
I have a graph database where there are user and interest nodes which are connected by IS_INTERESTED relationship. I want to find interests which are not selected by a user. I wrote this query and it is not working
OPTIONAL MATCH (u:User{userId : 1})-[r:IS_INTERESTED] -(i:Interest)
WHERE r is NULL
Return i.name as interest
According to answers to similar questions on SO (like this one), the above query is supposed to work.However,in this case it returns null. But when running the following query it works as expected:
MATCH (u:User{userId : 1}), (i:Interest)
WHERE NOT (u) -[:IS_INTERESTED] -(i)
return i.name as interest
The reason I don't want to run the above query is because Neo4j gives a warning:
This query builds a cartesian product between disconnected patterns.
If a part of a query contains multiple disconnected patterns, this
will build a cartesian product between all those parts. This may
produce a large amount of data and slow down query processing. While
occasionally intended, it may often be possible to reformulate the
query that avoids the use of this cross product, perhaps by adding a
relationship between the different parts or by using OPTIONAL MATCH
(identifier is: (i))
What am I doing wrong in the first query where I use OPTIONAL MATCH to find nonexistent relationships?
1) MATCH is looking for the pattern as a whole, and if can not find it in its entirety - does not return anything.
2) I think that this query will be effective:
// Take all user interests
MATCH (u:User{userId: 1})-[r:IS_INTERESTED]-(i:Interest)
WITH collect(i) as interests
// Check what interests are not included
MATCH (ni:Interest) WHERE NOT ni IN interests
RETURN ni.name
When your OPTIONAL MATCH query does not find a match, then both r AND i must be NULL. After all, since there is no relationship, there is no way get the nodes that it points to.
A WHERE directly after the OPTIONAL MATCH is pulled into the evaluation.
If you want to post-filter you have to use a WITH in between.
MATCH (u:User{userId : 1})
OPTIONAL MATCH (u)-[r:IS_INTERESTED] -(i:Interest)
WITH r,i
WHERE r is NULL
Return i.name as interest
I am doing the following Cypher query:
MATCH (a) WHERE a.itemId IN ['Q2', 'Q24', 'Q30', 'Q23', 'Q16', 'Q20'] RETURN a
I'd like it to return the same results as when I set the Auto-Complete switch. This question was asked and answered 1 but I don't understand the answer. Can this be performed in one query, and if so, what would the modified query be?
Yeah, you should be able to do it all in one query. To get the nodes in question along with their relationships you can do:
MATCH (a)
WHERE a.itemId IN ['Q2', 'Q24', 'Q30', 'Q23', 'Q16', 'Q20']
OPTIONAL MATCH (a)-[rel]-()
RETURN a, collect(rel)
That will return you, for each node, an array of the relationships.
Depending on your library that you're using for Neo4j, that may or may not return you something useful to give you the startnode/endnode. You could also do:
MATCH (a)
WHERE a.itemId IN ['Q2', 'Q24', 'Q30', 'Q23', 'Q16', 'Q20']
OPTIONAL MATCH (a)-[rel]-()
RETURN a, collect({rel: rel, start_node: startNode(rel), end_node: endNode(rel)})
That would give you an array for each node containing objects/maps of the data.
Got some separate clarification on the question about how to only return the relationships between the nodes that are matched. This should be possible like so:
MATCH (a)
WHERE a.itemId IN {itemIds}
OPTIONAL MATCH (a)-[rel]-(b)
WHERE b.itemId IN {itemIds}
RETURN a, collect(rel)
Again, you also might want to return the startNode/endNode of the relationships
Single relationships can be excluded by types using
Match (n:Person)-[r]-(m:Person) where type(r)<>"FRIENDS" return n,r,m
Is there a way to exclude multilevel relationships with cypher?
Match (n:Person)-[r*2..4]-(h:Hobby) where type(r)<>"FRIENDS" return n,r,h
Sure, you can do that. Like this:
Match (n:Person)-[r*2..4]-(h:Hobby)
where NONE( rel in r WHERE type(rel)="FRIENDS")
return n,r,h
Your query doesn't work because with multi-level paths, your r is a collection of relationships rather than a single one. So you can use any of the predicates on collections to do the filtering that you want.
Here, I chose NONE with type(rel)=FRIENDS, which means that you'll only get the result back if NONE of the relationships are of type FRIENDS. But you might instead want to use ANY or ALL, depending on what your query is supposed to mean.
Anyway, the main point here is to use a predicate function to turn a collection of things into a single boolean value.
You can use the ALL or ANY predicates for this:
MATCH p=(n:Person)-[*2..4]-(h:Hobby)
WHERE ALL(x in relationships(p) WHERE type(x) <> "FRIENDS")
RETURN n,r,h
Use the ALL predicate to make sure every relationship along that path is not a FRIEND. Use ANY to make sure you have at least one relationship not being FRIEND.
I'm trying to create a query using cypher that will "Find" missing ingredients that a chef might have, My graph is set up like so:
(ingredient_value)-[:is_part_of]->(ingredient)
(ingredient) would have a key/value of name="dye colors". (ingredient_value) could have a key/value of value="red" and "is part of" the (ingredient, name="dye colors").
(chef)-[:has_value]->(ingredient_value)<-[:requires_value]-(recipe)-[:requires_ingredient]->(ingredient)
I'm using this query to get all the ingredients, but not their actual values, that a recipe requires, but I would like the return only the ingredients that the chef does not have, instead of all the ingredients each recipe requires. I tried
(chef)-[:has_value]->(ingredient_value)<-[:requires_value]-(recipe)-[:requires_ingredient]->(ingredient)<-[:has_ingredient*0..0]-chef
but this returned nothing.
Is this something that can be accomplished by cypher/neo4j or is this something that is best handled by returning all ingredients and sorted through them myself?
Bonus: Also is there a way to use cypher to match all values that a chef has to all values that a recipe requires. So far I've only returned all partial matches that are returned by a chef-[:has_value]->ingredient_value<-[:requires_value]-recipe and aggregating the results myself.
Update 01/10/2013:
Came across this in the Neo4j 2.0 reference:
Try not to use optional relationships.
Above all,
don’t use them like this:
MATCH a-[r?:LOVES]->() WHERE r IS NULL where you just make sure that they don’t exist.
Instead do this like so:
MATCH (a) WHERE NOT (a)-[:LOVES]->()
Using cypher for checking if relationship doesn't exist:
...
MATCH source-[r?:someType]-target
WHERE r is null
RETURN source
The ? mark makes the relationship optional.
OR
In neo4j 2 do:
...
OPTIONAL MATCH source-[r:someType]-target
WHERE r is null
RETURN source
Now you can check for non-existing (null) relationship.
For fetching nodes with not any relationship
This is the good option to check relationship is exist or not
MATCH (player)
WHERE NOT(player)-[:played]->()
RETURN player
You can also check multiple conditions for this
It will return all nodes, which not having "played" Or "notPlayed" Relationship.
MATCH (player)
WHERE NOT (player)-[:played|notPlayed]->()
RETURN player
To fetch nodes which not having any realtionship
MATCH (player)
WHERE NOT (player)-[r]-()
RETURN player
It will check node not having any incoming/outgoing relationship.
If you need "conditional exclude" semantic, you can achieve it this way.
As of neo4j 2.2.1, you can use OPTIONAL MATCH clause and filter out the unmatched(NULL) nodes.
It is also important to use WITH clause between the OPTIONAL MATCH and WHERE clauses, so that the first WHERE defines a condition for the optional match and the second WHERE behaves like a filter.
Assuming we have 2 types of nodes: Person and Communication. If I want to get all Persons which have never communicated by the telephone, but may have communicated other ways, I would make this query:
MATCH (p: Person)
OPTIONAL MATCH p--(c: Communication)
WHERE c.way = 'telephone'
WITH p, c
WHERE c IS NULL
RETURN p
The match pattern will match all Persons with their communications where c will be NULL for non-telephone Communications. Then the filter(WHERE after WITH) will filter out telephone Communications leaving all others.
References:
http://neo4j.com/docs/stable/query-optional-match.html#_introduction_3
http://java.dzone.com/articles/new-neo4j-optional
I wrote a gist showing how this can be done quite naturally using Cypher 2.0
http://gist.neo4j.org/?9171581
The key point is to use optional match to available ingredients and then compare to filter for missing (null) ingredients or ingredients with the wrong value.
Note that the notion is declarative and doesn't need to describe an algorithm, you just write down what you need.
The last query should be:
START chef = node(..)
MATCH (chef)-[:has_value]->(ingredient_value)<-[:requires_value]-(recipe)-[:requires_ingredient]->(ingredient)
WHERE (ingredient)<-[:has_ingredient]-chef
RETURN ingredient
This pattern: (ingredient)<-[:has_ingredient*0..0]-chef
Is the reason it didn't return anything. *0..0 means that the length of the relationships must be zero, which means that ingredient and chef must be the same node, which they are not.
I completed this task using gremlin. I did
x=[]
g.idx('Chef')[[name:'chef1']].as('chef')
.out('has_ingredient').as('alreadyHas').aggregate(x).back('chef')
.out('has_value').as('values')
.in('requires_value').as('recipes')
.out('requires_ingredient').as('ingredients').except(x).path()
This returned the paths of all the missing ingredients. I was unable to formulate this in the cypher language, at least for version 1.7.
For new versions of Neo4j, you'll have this error:
MATCH (ingredient:Ingredient)
WHERE NOT (:Chef)-[:HAS_INGREDIENT]->(ingredient)
RETURN * LIMIT 100;
This feature is deprecated and will be removed in future versions.
Coercion of list to boolean is deprecated. Please consider using NOT isEmpty(...) instead.
To fix it:
MATCH (ingredient:Ingredient)
WHERE NOT EXISTS((:Chef)-[:HAS_INGREDIENT]->(ingredient))
RETURN * LIMIT 100;