CODEWITHSUNDEEP
neo4jcypher
tdudgeon
tdudgeon

Reputation: 365

efficient querying of array property in neo4j

I've wanting to query for nodes that have a specific value in a string array property. For instance my nodes might have 2 properties, name (a string) and aliases (a string array). I have created an index on both properties using something like CREATE INDEX ON :F2(name). I can query the name property using something cypher like this, and the result is immediate:

MATCH (p:F2) WHERE p.name = 'john' RETURN p;

I can query the aliases property using cypher like this, and I get the expected result but the response is very slow:

MATCH (p:F2) WHERE ANY(item IN p.aliases WHERE item = 'big john') RETURN p;

This looks like either the query is not optimal or the index is not being used. Can someone suggest how to do this correctly. I'm pretty new to neo4j and cyper :-(

Upvotes: 3

Views: 1013

Answers (1)

Dave Bennett
Dave Bennett

Reputation: 11216

You could refactor your graph to make alias a node. So that any F2 node has zero or more aliases.

CREATE INDEX ON :Alias(name)

Then you could query it with something like this...

MATCH (p:F2)-[:HAS_ALIAS]->(:Alias {name: 'big john'})
RETURN p

Upvotes: 2

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