apoc.import.xml

Procedure APOC Core

apoc.import.xml(file,config) - imports graph from provided file

Signature

apoc.import.xml(url :: STRING?, config = {} :: MAP?) :: (node :: NODE?)

Input parameters

Name Type Default

url

STRING?

null

config

MAP?

{}

Output parameters

Name Type

node

NODE?

Reading from a file

By default importing from the file system is disabled. We can enable it by setting the following property in apoc.conf:

apoc.conf
apoc.import.file.enabled=true

If we try to use any of the import procedures without having first set this property, we’ll get the following error message:

Failed to invoke procedure: Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: Import from files not enabled, please set apoc.import.file.enabled=true in your apoc.conf

Import files are read from the import directory, which is defined by the dbms.directories.import property. This means that any file path that we provide is relative to this directory. If we try to read from an absolute path, such as /tmp/filename, we’ll get an error message similar to the following one:

Failed to invoke procedure: Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: Can’t read url or key file:/path/to/neo4j/import/tmp/filename as json: /path/to/neo4j//import/tmp/filename (No such file or directory)

We can enable reading files from anywhere on the file system by setting the following property in apoc.conf:

apoc.conf
apoc.import.file.use_neo4j_config=false

Neo4j will now be able to read from anywhere on the file system, so be sure that this is your intention before setting this property.

Usage Examples

The examples in this section are based on the Microsoft book.xml file.

book.xml
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<catalog>
   <book id="bk101">
      <author>Gambardella, Matthew</author>
      <title>XML Developer's Guide</title>
      <genre>Computer</genre>
      <price>44.95</price>
      <publish_date>2000-10-01</publish_date>
      <description>An in-depth look at creating applications
      with XML.</description>
   </book>
   <book id="bk102">
      <author>Ralls, Kim</author>
      <title>Midnight Rain</title>
      <genre>Fantasy</genre>
      <price>5.95</price>
      <publish_date>2000-12-16</publish_date>
      <description>A former architect battles corporate zombies,
...

This file can be downloaded from GitHub.

We can write the following query to create a graph structure of the Microsoft books XML file.

CALL apoc.import.xml(
  "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/neo4j-contrib/neo4j-apoc-procedures/4.1/src/test/resources/xml/books.xml",
  {relType:'NEXT_WORD', label:'XmlWord'}
)
YIELD node
RETURN node;
node

(:XmlDocument {_xmlVersion: "1.0", _xmlEncoding: "UTF-8", url: "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/neo4j-contrib/neo4j-apoc-procedures/4.0/src/test/resources/xml/books.xml"})

The Neo4j Browser visualization below shows the imported graph:

apoc.import.xml