CODEWITHSUNDEEP
timeneo4j
marhg
marhg

Reputation: 687

How to store time data type in neo4j?

I created some user nodes with some value-time:

CREATE (u1:User {name:'user 1', pickUpTime:'10:10', dropOffTime:'10:35'})

I wonder what is a good way (format) to store time, because when i do this kind of queries

MATCH (u:User) RETURN u.name AS name, u.pickUpTime AS pickTime Order by pickTime desc

I got this as result

name    pickTime
user 3  9:30
user 2  10:20
user 1  10:10

And i need to get an ordered result:

 name   pickTime
 user 3  9:30
 user 1 10:10
 user 2 10:20

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance

Upvotes: 1

Views: 616

Answers (2)

FrobberOfBits
FrobberOfBits

Reputation: 18022

Time is a much trickier thing that it first appears, usually because time often refers back to a timezone, a date, or something else.

Many people will store the epoch time that they get from java via System.getCurrentTimeMillis(). They'll then convert it to whatever they need later on.

Other people will store the number of minutes after midnight if they're just looking for a relative time of day (i.e. 2:30PM)

Another option is to use Java Date objects as values. These are richer and allow you to express a timezone, calendar concepts, etc.

Storing them as strings is definitely a losing proposition for most use cases. Storing as something like a long integer permits direct comparison, but also requires that you convert something like an epoch time to a string that you really want, like "9:30"

Upvotes: 2

Alessandro Negro
Alessandro Negro

Reputation: 517

Two notes:

  1. You should use a format like HH:mm that means that you need to specify 9:30 as 09:30.

  2. Also in the previous case you need to specify "order by pickTime asc" and not desc if you would like to obtain the order you desire

Upvotes: 2

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