Book Image

Learning Neo4j

By : Rik Van Bruggen
Book Image

Learning Neo4j

By: Rik Van Bruggen

Overview of this book

Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Learning Neo4j
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Where to Find More Information Related to Neo4j
Index

The four fundamental data constructs


As you may already know by now, graph theory gives us many different graphs to work with. Graphs come in many different shapes and sizes, and therefore, Neo4j needed to choose a very specific type of data structure that is flexible enough to support the versatility required by real-world datasets. This is why the underlying data model of Neo4j, the labeled property graph, is one of the most generic and versatile of all graph models.

This graph data model gives us four different fundamental building blocks to structure and store our data. Let's go through them:

The labeled property graph model

  • Nodes: These are typically used to store entity information. In the preceding example, these are the individual books, readers, and authors that are present in the library data model.

  • Relationships: These are used to connect nodes to one another explicitly and therefore provide a means of structuring your entities. They are the equivalent of an explicitly stored, and...