Knowledge Base

All shortest paths between a set of nodes

Consider a number of arbitrary nodes, A,B,C,D,E,F,…​..

I wish to return all of the shortest paths between these nodes. The nodes may have many edges between them, but anticipate a maximum of 4. The graph is complex and non hierarchical (if this makes sense - any node may point to any other node). A typical node has the form: match (n:Entity { name: 'xyz' })

How would I write the match expression to return the shortest paths between the above nodes, in no specific order?

Solution

  1. Find the set of nodes using an indexed lookup operation

  2. Collect them into a list

  3. Unwind the list twice, once for every side of the path

  4. Remove inverse pairs by id comparison

  5. match and return the paths

MATCH (n:Entity) where n.name IN {names}
WITH collect(n) as nodes
UNWIND nodes as n
UNWIND nodes as m
WITH * WHERE id(n) < id(m)
MATCH path = allShortestPaths( (n)-[*..4]-(m) )
RETURN path