Traversal

This describes traversing into another graph.

For more information about traversals, see The traversal framework.

The traversal API described in this section has been deprecated and will be replaced in the next major release of Neo4j.

1. The Matrix

This is the first graph to traverse into:

Figure 1. Matrix node space view

The source code of this example is found here: NewMatrix.java

Friends and friends of friends:

private Traverser getFriends( Transaction transaction, final Node person )
{
    TraversalDescription td = transaction.traversalDescription()
            .breadthFirst()
            .relationships( RelTypes.KNOWS, Direction.OUTGOING )
            .evaluator( Evaluators.excludeStartPosition() );
    return td.traverse( person );
}

You can perform the actual traversal and print the results:

int numberOfFriends = 0;
String output = neoNode.getProperty( "name" ) + "'s friends:\n";
Traverser friendsTraverser = getFriends( tx, neoNode );
for ( Path friendPath : friendsTraverser )
{
    output += "At depth " + friendPath.length() + " => "
              + friendPath.endNode()
                      .getProperty( "name" ) + "\n";
    numberOfFriends++;
}
output += "Number of friends found: " + numberOfFriends + "\n";

Which will give you the following output:

Thomas Anderson's friends:
At depth 1 => Morpheus
At depth 1 => Trinity
At depth 2 => Cypher
At depth 3 => Agent Smith
Number of friends found: 4

Who coded the Matrix?

private Traverser findHackers( Transaction transaction, final Node startNode )
{
    TraversalDescription td = transaction.traversalDescription()
        .breadthFirst()
        .relationships( RelTypes.CODED_BY, Direction.OUTGOING )
        .relationships( RelTypes.KNOWS, Direction.OUTGOING )
        .evaluator(Evaluators.includeWhereLastRelationshipTypeIs( RelTypes.CODED_BY ) );
    return td.traverse( startNode );
}

Print out the result:

String output = "Hackers:\n";
int numberOfHackers = 0;
Traverser traverser = findHackers( tx, getNeoNode( tx ) );
for ( Path hackerPath : traverser )
{
    output += "At depth " + hackerPath.length() + " => " + hackerPath.endNode().getProperty( "name" ) + "\n";
    numberOfHackers++;
}
output += "Number of hackers found: " + numberOfHackers + "\n";

Now you know who coded the Matrix:

Hackers:
At depth 4 => The Architect
Number of hackers found: 1

1.1. Walking an ordered path

This example shows how to use a path context holding a representation of a path.

The source code of this example is found here: OrderedPath.java

Create a toy graph:

Node A = tx.createNode();
Node B = tx.createNode();
Node C = tx.createNode();
Node D = tx.createNode();

A.createRelationshipTo( C, REL2 );
C.createRelationshipTo( D, REL3 );
A.createRelationshipTo( B, REL1 );
B.createRelationshipTo( C, REL2 );

Now, the order of relationships (REL1 → REL2 → REL3) is stored in an ArrayList. Upon traversal, the Evaluator can check against it to ensure that only paths are included and returned that have the predefined order of relationships:

final ArrayList<RelationshipType> orderedPathContext = new ArrayList<>();
orderedPathContext.add( REL1 );
orderedPathContext.add( withName( "REL2" ) );
orderedPathContext.add( withName( "REL3" ) );
TraversalDescription td = tx.traversalDescription()
    .evaluator( new Evaluator()
    {
        @Override
        public Evaluation evaluate( final Path path )
        {
            if ( path.length() == 0 )
            {
                return Evaluation.EXCLUDE_AND_CONTINUE;
            }
            RelationshipType expectedType = orderedPathContext.get( path.length() - 1 );
            boolean isExpectedType = path.lastRelationship()
                    .isType( expectedType );
            boolean included = path.length() == orderedPathContext.size() && isExpectedType;
            boolean continued = path.length() < orderedPathContext.size() && isExpectedType;
            return Evaluation.of( included, continued );
        }
    } )
    .uniqueness( Uniqueness.NODE_PATH ); (1)

1	Note that we set the uniqueness to `Uniqueness.NODE_PATH`, as you want to be able to revisit the same node during the traversal, but not the same path.

Perform the traversal and print the result:

Traverser traverser = td.traverse( tx.getNodeById( A.getId() ) );
PathPrinter pathPrinter = new PathPrinter( "name" );
for ( Path path : traverser )
{
    output += Paths.pathToString( path, pathPrinter );
}

Which will output:

(A)--[REL1]-->(B)--[REL2]-->(C)--[REL3]-->(D)

In this case, a customized class is used to format the path output. This is how it is done:

static class PathPrinter implements Paths.PathDescriptor<Path>
{
    private final String nodePropertyKey;

    public PathPrinter( String nodePropertyKey )
    {
        this.nodePropertyKey = nodePropertyKey;
    }

    @Override
    public String nodeRepresentation( Path path, Node node )
    {
        return "(" + node.getProperty( nodePropertyKey, "" ) + ")";
    }

    @Override
    public String relationshipRepresentation( Path path, Node from, Relationship relationship )
    {
        String prefix = "--", suffix = "--";
        if ( from.equals( relationship.getEndNode() ) )
        {
            prefix = "<--";
        }
        else
        {
            suffix = "-->";
        }
        return prefix + "[" + relationship.getType().name() + "]" + suffix;
    }
}

2. Uniqueness of Paths in traversals

This example is demonstrating the use of node uniqueness. Below an imaginary domain graph with Principals that own pets that are descendant to other pets.

Descendants example graph

uniqueness of paths in traversals graph

In order to return all descendants of Pet0 which have the relation owns to Principal1 (Pet1 and Pet3), the Uniqueness of the traversal needs to be set to NODE_PATH rather than the default NODE_GLOBAL. This way nodes can be traversed more that once, and paths that have different nodes but can have some nodes in common (like the start and end node) can be returned.

Node dataTarget = data.get().get( "Principal1" );
String output = "";
int count = 0;
try ( Transaction transaction = graphdb().beginTx() )
{
    start = transaction.getNodeById( start.getId() );
    final Node target = transaction.getNodeById( dataTarget.getId() );
    TraversalDescription td = transaction.traversalDescription()
            .uniqueness( Uniqueness.NODE_PATH )
            .evaluator( new Evaluator()
    {
        @Override
        public Evaluation evaluate( Path path )
        {
            boolean endNodeIsTarget = path.endNode().equals( target );
            return Evaluation.of( endNodeIsTarget, !endNodeIsTarget );
        }
    } );

    Traverser results = td.traverse( start );
}

This will return the following paths:

(2)-[descendant,2]->(0)<-[owns,5]-(1)
(2)-[descendant,0]->(5)<-[owns,3]-(1)

In the default path.toString() implementation, (1)--[knows,2]-→(4) denotes a node with ID=1 having a relationship with ID=2 or type knows to a node with ID=4.

Let’s create a new TraversalDescription from the old one, having NODE_GLOBAL uniqueness to see the difference.

The TraversalDescription object is immutable, so we have to use the new instance returned with the new uniqueness setting.

TraversalDescription nodeGlobalTd = tx.traversalDescription().uniqueness( Uniqueness.NODE_PATH ).evaluator( new Evaluator()
{
    @Override
    public Evaluation evaluate( Path path )
    {
        boolean endNodeIsTarget = path.endNode().equals( target );
        return Evaluation.of( endNodeIsTarget, !endNodeIsTarget );
    }
} ).uniqueness( Uniqueness.NODE_GLOBAL );
Traverser results = nodeGlobalTd.traverse( start );

Now only one path is returned:

(2)-[descendant,2]->(0)<-[owns,5]-(1)

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