Book Image

Graph Data Processing with Cypher

By : Ravindranatha Anthapu
Book Image

Graph Data Processing with Cypher

By: Ravindranatha Anthapu

Overview of this book

While it is easy to learn and understand the Cypher declarative language for querying graph databases, it can be very difficult to master it. As graph databases are becoming more mainstream, there is a dearth of content and guidance for developers to leverage database capabilities fully. This book fills the information gap by describing graph traversal patterns in a simple and readable way. This book provides a guided tour of Cypher from understanding the syntax, building a graph data model, and loading the data into graphs to building queries and profiling the queries for best performance. It introduces APOC utilities that can augment Cypher queries to build complex queries. You’ll also be introduced to visualization tools such as Bloom to get the most out of the graph when presenting the results to the end users. After having worked through this book, you’ll have become a seasoned Cypher query developer with a good understanding of the query language and how to use it for the best performance.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
1
Part 1: Cypher Introduction
4
Part 2: Working with Cypher
9
Part 3: Advanced Cypher Concepts

Using the nodes syntax

In Cypher, a node is surrounded by parentheses, (), making it resemble a circle in a diagram. Here are some example usages in Cypher:

  • (p) – This represents a node identified with the p variable/alias. It can be of any type.
  • () – This represents a node that is not assigned a variable or an alias. This is normally called an anonymous node, as it cannot be referenced later, except as part of a path.
  • (:Person) – This represents a node with the Person label, but is not assigned to a variable or an alias.
  • (p:Person) – This represents a node with a Person label, identified with the p variable/alias.
  • (l:Location:Work) – This represents a node with multiple labels, Location and Work, identified with the l variable/alias.

Let’s move on to the relationships syntax.