User-defined functions

This describes how to write, test and deploy a user-defined function for Neo4j.

User-defined functions are a simpler form of procedures that are read-only and always return a single value. Although they are not as powerful in capability, they are often easier to use and more efficient than procedures for many common tasks. For a comparison between user-defined procedures, functions, and aggregation functions see Neo4j customized code.

1. Call a user-defined function

User-defined functions are called in the same way as any other Cypher function. The function name must be fully qualified, so a function named join defined in the package org.neo4j.examples could be called using:

MATCH (p: Person) WHERE p.age = 36
RETURN org.neo4j.examples.join(collect(p.names))

2. Create a function

User-defined functions are created similarly to how procedures are created, but are instead annotated with @UserFunction and instead of returning a stream of values it returns a single value.

See Values and types for details on values and types.

For more details, see the Neo4j Javadocs for org.neo4j.procedure.UserFunction.

The correct way to signal an error from within a function is to throw a RuntimeException.

 
package example;

import org.neo4j.procedure.Name;
import org.neo4j.procedure.Procedure;
import org.neo4j.procedure.UserFunction;

public class Join
{
    @UserFunction
    @Description("example.join(['s1','s2',...], delimiter) - join the given strings with the given delimiter.")
    public String join(
            @Name("strings") List<String> strings,
            @Name(value = "delimiter", defaultValue = ",") String delimiter) {
        if (strings == null || delimiter == null) {
            return null;
        }
        return String.join(delimiter, strings);
    }
}

3. Integration tests

Tests for user-defined functions are created in the same way as those for procedures.

Below is a template for testing a user-defined function that joins a list of strings.

package example;

import org.junit.Rule;
import org.junit.Test;
import org.neo4j.driver.v1.*;
import org.neo4j.harness.junit.Neo4jRule;

import static org.hamcrest.core.IsEqual.equalTo;
import static org.junit.Assert.assertThat;

public class JoinTest
{
    // This rule starts a Neo4j instance
    @Rule
    public Neo4jRule neo4j = new Neo4jRule()

            // This is the function to test
            .withFunction( Join.class );

    @Test
    public void shouldAllowIndexingAndFindingANode() throws Throwable
    {
        // This is in a try-block, to make sure you close the driver after the test
        try( Driver driver = GraphDatabase.driver( neo4j.boltURI() , Config.build().withEncryptionLevel( Config.EncryptionLevel.NONE ).toConfig() ) )
        {
            // Given
            Session session = driver.session();

            // When
            String result = session.run( "RETURN example.join(['Hello', 'World']) AS result").single().get("result").asString();

            // Then
            assertThat( result, equalTo( "Hello,World" ) );
        }
    }
}