Composing large statements

This section describes how to compose large statements using the UNION and WITH keywords.

This section includes:

1. Example graph

We continue using the same example data as before:

CREATE (matrix:Movie { title:"The Matrix",released:1997 })
CREATE (cloudAtlas:Movie { title:"Cloud Atlas",released:2012 })
CREATE (forrestGump:Movie { title:"Forrest Gump",released:1994 })
CREATE (keanu:Person { name:"Keanu Reeves", born:1964 })
CREATE (robert:Person { name:"Robert Zemeckis", born:1951 })
CREATE (tom:Person { name:"Tom Hanks", born:1956 })
CREATE (tom)-[:ACTED_IN { roles: ["Forrest"]}]->(forrestGump)
CREATE (tom)-[:ACTED_IN { roles: ['Zachry']}]->(cloudAtlas)
CREATE (robert)-[:DIRECTED]->(forrestGump)

This is the resulting graph:

cypher intro large statements01

2. UNION

If you want to combine the results of two statements that have the same result structure, you can use UNION [ALL].

For example, the following statement lists both actors and directors:

MATCH (actor:Person)-[r:ACTED_IN]->(movie:Movie)
RETURN actor.name AS name, type(r) AS type, movie.title AS title
UNION
MATCH (director:Person)-[r:DIRECTED]->(movie:Movie)
RETURN director.name AS name, type(r) AS type, movie.title AS title
+-------------------------------------------------+
| name              | type       | title          |
+-------------------------------------------------+
| "Tom Hanks"       | "ACTED_IN" | "Cloud Atlas"  |
| "Tom Hanks"       | "ACTED_IN" | "Forrest Gump" |
| "Robert Zemeckis" | "DIRECTED" | "Forrest Gump" |
+-------------------------------------------------+

3 rows

Note that the returned columns must be aliased in the same way in all the sub-clauses.

The query above is equivalent to this more compact query:

MATCH (actor:Person)-[r:ACTED_IN|DIRECTED]->(movie:Movie)
RETURN actor.name AS name, type(r) AS type, movie.title AS title

3. WITH

In Cypher it is possible to chain fragments of statements together, similar to how it is done within a data-flow pipeline. Each fragment works on the output from the previous one, and its results can feed into the next one. Only columns declared in the WITH clause are available in subsequent query parts.

The WITH clause is used to combine the individual parts and declare which data flows from one to the other. WITH is similar to the RETURN clause. The difference is that the WITH clause does not finish the query, but prepares the input for the next part. Expressions, aggregations, ordering and pagination can be used in the same way as in the RETURN clause. The only difference is all columns must be aliased.

In the example below, we collect the movies someone appeared in, and then filter out those which appear in only one movie:

MATCH (person:Person)-[:ACTED_IN]->(m:Movie)
WITH person, count(*) AS appearances, collect(m.title) AS movies
WHERE appearances > 1
RETURN person.name, appearances, movies
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| person.name | appearances | movies                          |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| "Tom Hanks" | 2           | ["Cloud Atlas", "Forrest Gump"] |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

1 row