apoc.import.graphml

Procedure APOC Core

apoc.import.graphml(urlOrBinaryFile,config) - imports graphml file

Signature

apoc.import.graphml(urlOrBinaryFile :: ANY?, config :: MAP?) :: (file :: STRING?, source :: STRING?, format :: STRING?, nodes :: INTEGER?, relationships :: INTEGER?, properties :: INTEGER?, time :: INTEGER?, rows :: INTEGER?, batchSize :: INTEGER?, batches :: INTEGER?, done :: BOOLEAN?, data :: STRING?)

Input parameters

Name Type Default

urlOrBinaryFile

ANY?

null

config

MAP?

null

Config parameters

The procedure support the following config parameters:

Table 1. Config parameters
name type default description

readLabels

Boolean

false

Creates node labels based on the value in the labels property of node elements

defaultRelationshipType

String

RELATED

The default relationship type to use if none is specified in the GraphML file

storeNodeIds

Boolean

false

store the id property of node elements

batchSize

Integer

20000

The number of elements to process per transaction

compression

Enum[NONE, BYTES, GZIP, BZIP2, DEFLATE, BLOCK_LZ4, FRAMED_SNAPPY]

null

Allow taking binary data, either not compressed (value: NONE) or compressed (other values)

source

Map<String,String>

Empty map

See below

target

Map<String,String>

Empty map

See below See the Binary file example

source / target config

Allows the import of relations in case the source and / or target nodes are not present in the file, searching for nodes via a custom label and property. To do this, we can insert into the config map source: {label: '<MY_SOURCE_LABEL>', id: ’<MY_SOURCE_ID>'}` and/or source: {label: '<MY_TARGET_LABEL>', id: ’<MY_TARGET_ID>'}` In this way, we can search start and end nodes via the source and end attribute of edge tag.

For example, with a config map {source: {id: 'myId', label: 'Foo'}, target: {id: 'other', label: 'Bar'}} with a edge row like <edge id="e0" source="n0" target="n1" label="KNOWS"><data key="label">KNOWS</data></edge> we search a source node (:Foo {myId: 'n0'}) and an end node (:Bar {other: 'n1'}). The id key is optional (the default is 'id').

Output parameters

Name Type

file

STRING?

source

STRING?

format

STRING?

nodes

INTEGER?

relationships

INTEGER?

properties

INTEGER?

time

INTEGER?

rows

INTEGER?

batchSize

INTEGER?

batches

INTEGER?

done

BOOLEAN?

data

STRING?

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

Import simple GraphML file

The simple.graphml file contains a graph representation from the GraphML primer.

apoc.import.graphml.simple diagram
simple.graphml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<graphml xmlns="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns
     http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns/1.0/graphml.xsd">
  <graph id="G" edgedefault="undirected">
    <node id="n0"/>
    <node id="n1"/>
    <node id="n2"/>
    <node id="n3"/>
    <node id="n4"/>
    <node id="n5"/>
    <node id="n6"/>
    <node id="n7"/>
    <node id="n8"/>
    <node id="n9"/>
    <node id="n10"/>
    <edge source="n0" target="n2"/>
    <edge source="n1" target="n2"/>
    <edge source="n2" target="n3"/>
    <edge source="n3" target="n5"/>
    <edge source="n3" target="n4"/>
    <edge source="n4" target="n6"/>
    <edge source="n6" target="n5"/>
    <edge source="n5" target="n7"/>
    <edge source="n6" target="n8"/>
    <edge source="n8" target="n7"/>
    <edge source="n8" target="n9"/>
    <edge source="n8" target="n10"/>
  </graph>
</graphml>
The following imports a graph based on simple.graphml
CALL apoc.import.graphml("http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/primer/simple.graphml", {})

If we run this query, we’ll see the following output:

Table 2. Results
file source format nodes relationships properties time rows batchSize batches done data

"http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/primer/simple.graphml"

"file"

"graphml"

11

12

0

618

0

-1

0

TRUE

NULL

We could also copy simple.graphml into Neo4j’s import directory, and import the file from there.

We can then run the import procedure in the following way:

The following imports a graph based on simple.graphml
CALL apoc.import.graphml("file://simple.graphml", {})

The Neo4j Browser visualization below shows the imported graph:

apoc.import.graphml.simple
Figure 1. Simple Graph Visualization

Import GraphML file created by Export GraphML procedures

movies.graphml contains a subset of Neo4j’s movies graph, and was generated by the Export GraphML procedure.

movies.graphml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<graphml xmlns="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns/1.0/graphml.xsd">
<key id="born" for="node" attr.name="born"/>
<key id="name" for="node" attr.name="name"/>
<key id="tagline" for="node" attr.name="tagline"/>
<key id="label" for="node" attr.name="label"/>
<key id="title" for="node" attr.name="title"/>
<key id="released" for="node" attr.name="released"/>
<key id="roles" for="edge" attr.name="roles"/>
<key id="label" for="edge" attr.name="label"/>
<graph id="G" edgedefault="directed">
<node id="n188" labels=":Movie"><data key="labels">:Movie</data><data key="title">The Matrix</data><data key="tagline">Welcome to the Real World</data><data key="released">1999</data></node>
<node id="n189" labels=":Person"><data key="labels">:Person</data><data key="born">1964</data><data key="name">Keanu Reeves</data></node>
<node id="n190" labels=":Person"><data key="labels">:Person</data><data key="born">1967</data><data key="name">Carrie-Anne Moss</data></node>
<node id="n191" labels=":Person"><data key="labels">:Person</data><data key="born">1961</data><data key="name">Laurence Fishburne</data></node>
<node id="n192" labels=":Person"><data key="labels">:Person</data><data key="born">1960</data><data key="name">Hugo Weaving</data></node>
<node id="n193" labels=":Person"><data key="labels">:Person</data><data key="born">1967</data><data key="name">Lilly Wachowski</data></node>
<node id="n194" labels=":Person"><data key="labels">:Person</data><data key="born">1965</data><data key="name">Lana Wachowski</data></node>
<node id="n195" labels=":Person"><data key="labels">:Person</data><data key="born">1952</data><data key="name">Joel Silver</data></node>
<edge id="e267" source="n189" target="n188" label="ACTED_IN"><data key="label">ACTED_IN</data><data key="roles">["Neo"]</data></edge>
<edge id="e268" source="n190" target="n188" label="ACTED_IN"><data key="label">ACTED_IN</data><data key="roles">["Trinity"]</data></edge>
<edge id="e269" source="n191" target="n188" label="ACTED_IN"><data key="label">ACTED_IN</data><data key="roles">["Morpheus"]</data></edge>
<edge id="e270" source="n192" target="n188" label="ACTED_IN"><data key="label">ACTED_IN</data><data key="roles">["Agent Smith"]</data></edge>
<edge id="e271" source="n193" target="n188" label="DIRECTED"><data key="label">DIRECTED</data></edge>
<edge id="e272" source="n194" target="n188" label="DIRECTED"><data key="label">DIRECTED</data></edge>
<edge id="e273" source="n195" target="n188" label="PRODUCED"><data key="label">PRODUCED</data></edge>
</graph>
</graphml>
The following imports a graph based on movies.graphml
CALL apoc.import.graphml("movies.graphml", {})

If we run this query, we’ll see the following output:

Table 3. Results
file source format nodes relationships properties time rows batchSize batches done data

"movies.graphml"

"file"

"graphml"

8

7

36

23

0

-1

0

TRUE

NULL

We can run the following query to see the imported graph:

MATCH p=()-->()
RETURN p
Table 4. Results
p

({name: "Laurence Fishburne", born: "1961", labels: ":Person"})-[:ACTED_IN {roles: "[\"Morpheus\"]", label: "ACTED_IN"}]→({tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999", labels: ":Movie"})

({name: "Carrie-Anne Moss", born: "1967", labels: ":Person"})-[:ACTED_IN {roles: "[\"Trinity\"]", label: "ACTED_IN"}]→({tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999", la bels: ":Movie"})

({name: "Lana Wachowski", born: "1965", labels: ":Person"})-[:DIRECTED {label: "DIRECTED"}]→({tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999", labels: ":Movie"})

({name: "Joel Silver", born: "1952", labels: ":Person"})-[:PRODUCED {label: "PRODUCED"}]→({tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999", labels: ":Movie"})

({name: "Lilly Wachowski", born: "1967", labels: ":Person"})-[:DIRECTED {label: "DIRECTED"}]→({tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999", labels: ":Movie"})

({name: "Keanu Reeves", born: "1964", labels: ":Person"})-[:ACTED_IN {roles: "[\"Neo\"]", label: "ACTED_IN"}]→({tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999", labels: ": Movie"})

({name: "Hugo Weaving", born: "1960", labels: ":Person"})-[:ACTED_IN {roles: "[\"Agent Smith\"]", label: "ACTED_IN"}]→({tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999", la bels: ":Movie"})

The labels defined in the GraphML file have been added to the labels property on each node, rather than being added as a node label. We can set the config property readLabels: true to import native labels:

The following imports a graph based on movies.graphml and stores node labels
CALL apoc.import.graphml("movies.graphml", {readLabels: true})
Table 5. Results
file source format nodes relationships properties time rows batchSize batches done data

"movies.graphml"

"file"

"graphml"

8

7

21

23

0

-1

0

TRUE

NULL

And now let’s re-run the query to see the imported graph:

MATCH p=()-->()
RETURN;
Table 6. Results
p

(:Person {name: "Lilly Wachowski", born: "1967"})-[:DIRECTED]→(:Movie {tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999"})

(:Person {name: "Carrie-Anne Moss", born: "1967"})-[:ACTED_IN {roles: "[\"Trinity\"]"}]→(:Movie {tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999"})

(:Person {name: "Hugo Weaving", born: "1960"})-[:ACTED_IN {roles: "[\"Agent Smith\"]"}]→(:Movie {tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999"})

(:Person {name: "Laurence Fishburne", born: "1961"})-[:ACTED_IN {roles: "[\"Morpheus\"]"}]→(:Movie {tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999"})

(:Person {name: "Keanu Reeves", born: "1964"})-[:ACTED_IN {roles: "[\"Neo\"]"}]→(:Movie {tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999"})

(:Person {name: "Joel Silver", born: "1952"})-[:PRODUCED]→(:Movie {tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999"})

(:Person {name: "Lana Wachowski", born: "1965"})-[:DIRECTED]→(:Movie {tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999"})

Binary file

You can also import a file from a binary byte[] (not compressed) or a compressed file (allowed compression algos are: GZIP, BZIP2, DEFLATE, BLOCK_LZ4, FRAMED_SNAPPY).

CALL apoc.import.graphml(`binaryGzipByteArray`,  {compression: 'GZIP'})

or:

CALL apoc.import.graphml(`binaryFileNotCompressed`,  {compression: 'NONE'})

For example, this one works well with apoc.util.compress function:

WITH apoc.util.compress('<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<graphml xmlns="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns/1.0/graphml.xsd">
<graph id="G" edgedefault="directed">
<node id="n0"> <data key="labels">:FOO</data><data key="name">foo</data> </node>
<node id="n1"> <data key="labels">:BAR</data><data key="name">bar</data> <data key="kids">[a,b,c]</data> </node>
<edge id="e0" source="n0" target="n1"> <data key="label">:EDGE_LABEL</data> <data key="name">foo</data> </edge>
</graph>
</graphml>', {compression: 'DEFLATE'}) as xmlCompressed
CALL apoc.import.graphml(xmlCompressed,  {compression: 'DEFLATE'})
YIELD source, format, nodes, relationships, properties
RETURN source, format, nodes, relationships, properties
Table 7. Results
source format nodes relationships properties

"binary"

"graphml"

2

1

7

Round trip separated GraphML files

With this dataset:

CREATE (f:Foo:Foo2:Foo0 {name:'foo', born:Date('2018-10-10'), place:point({ longitude: 56.7, latitude: 12.78, height: 100 })})-[:KNOWS]->(b:Bar {name:'bar',age:42, place:point({ longitude: 56.7, latitude: 12.78})});
CREATE (:Foo {name: 'zzz'})-[:KNOWS]->(:Bar {age: 0});
CREATE (:Foo {name: 'aaa'})-[:KNOWS {id: 1}]->(:Bar {age: 666});

we can execute these 3 export queries:

// Foo nodes
call apoc.export.graphml.query('MATCH (start:Foo)-[:KNOWS]->(:Bar) RETURN start', 'queryNodesFoo.graphml', {useTypes: true});

// Bar nodes
call apoc.export.graphml.query('MATCH (:Foo)-[:KNOWS]->(end:Bar) RETURN end', 'queryNodesBar.graphml', {useTypes: true});

// KNOWS rels
MATCH (:Foo)-[rel:KNOWS]->(:Bar)
WITH collect(rel) as rels
call apoc.export.graphml.data([], rels, 'queryRelationship.graphml', {useTypes: true})
YIELD nodes, relationships RETURN nodes, relationships;

In this case we will have these 3 files: .queryNodesFoo.graphml

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<graphml xmlns="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns/1.0/graphml.xsd">
<key id="born" for="node" attr.name="born" attr.type="string"/>
<key id="name" for="node" attr.name="name" attr.type="string"/>
<key id="place" for="node" attr.name="place" attr.type="string"/>
<key id="labels" for="node" attr.name="labels" attr.type="string"/>
<graph id="G" edgedefault="directed">
<node id="n0" labels=":Foo:Foo0:Foo2"><data key="labels">:Foo:Foo0:Foo2</data><data key="born">2018-10-10</data><data key="name">foo</data><data key="place">{"crs":"wgs-84-3d","latitude":12.78,"longitude":56.7,"height":100.0}</data></node>
<node id="n3" labels=":Foo"><data key="labels">:Foo</data><data key="name">zzz</data></node>
<node id="n5" labels=":Foo"><data key="labels">:Foo</data><data key="name">aaa</data></node>
</graph>
</graphml>
queryNodesBar.graphml
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<graphml xmlns="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns/1.0/graphml.xsd">
<key id="name" for="node" attr.name="name" attr.type="string"/>
<key id="place" for="node" attr.name="place" attr.type="string"/>
<key id="age" for="node" attr.name="age" attr.type="long"/>
<key id="labels" for="node" attr.name="labels" attr.type="string"/>
<graph id="G" edgedefault="directed">
<node id="n1" labels=":Bar"><data key="labels">:Bar</data><data key="name">bar</data><data key="age">42</data><data key="place">{"crs":"wgs-84","latitude":12.78,"longitude":56.7,"height":null}</data></node>
<node id="n4" labels=":Bar"><data key="labels">:Bar</data><data key="age">0</data></node>
<node id="n6" labels=":Bar"><data key="labels">:Bar</data><data key="age">666</data></node>
</graph>
</graphml>
queryRelationship.graphml
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<graphml xmlns="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns/1.0/graphml.xsd">
<key id="label" for="edge" attr.name="label" attr.type="string"/>
<key id="id" for="edge" attr.name="id" attr.type="long"/>
<graph id="G" edgedefault="directed">
<edge id="e0" source="n0" target="n1" label="KNOWS"><data key="label">KNOWS</data></edge>
<edge id="e1" source="n3" target="n4" label="KNOWS"><data key="label">KNOWS</data></edge>
<edge id="e2" source="n5" target="n6" label="KNOWS"><data key="label">KNOWS</data><data key="id">1</data></edge>
</graph>
</graphml>

So we can import, in another db, in this way, to recreate the original dataset, using these queries:

CALL apoc.import.graphml('queryNodesFoo.graphml', {readLabels: true, storeNodeIds: true});
CALL apoc.import.graphml('queryNodesBar.graphml', {readLabels: true, storeNodeIds: true});
CALL apoc.import.graphml('queryRelationship.graphml', {readLabels: true, source: {label: 'Foo'}, target: {label: 'Bar'}});

Note that we have to execute the import of nodes before, and we used the useTypes: true to import the attribute id of node tags as a property and readLabels to populate nodes with labels.

With custom property key

Otherwise, we can leverage a custom property and avoid importing the id attribute (via useTypes:true) in this way (same dataset and nodes export query as before):

// KNOWS rels
MATCH (:Foo)-[rel:KNOWS]->(:Bar)
WITH collect(rel) as rels
call apoc.export.graphml.data([], rels, 'queryRelationship.graphml',
  {useTypes: true, source: {id: 'name'}, label: {id: 'age'}})
YIELD nodes, relationships RETURN nodes, relationships;

Is strongly recommended using an unique constraint to ensure uniqueness, so in this case for label Foo and property name and for label Bar and property age

The above query generate this rel file:

queryRelationship.graphml
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<graphml xmlns="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns/1.0/graphml.xsd">
<key id="label" for="edge" attr.name="label" attr.type="string"/>
<key id="id" for="edge" attr.name="id" attr.type="long"/>
<graph id="G" edgedefault="directed">
<edge id="e0" source="foo" sourceType="string" target="42" targetType="long" label="KNOWS"><data key="label">KNOWS</data></edge>
<edge id="e1" source="zzz" sourceType="string" target="0" targetType="long" label="KNOWS"><data key="label">KNOWS</data></edge>
<edge id="e2" source="aaa" sourceType="string" target="666" targetType="long" label="KNOWS"><data key="label">KNOWS</data><data key="id">1</data></edge>
</graph>
</graphml>

Finally, we can import the files using the same id (name and age) as above:

CALL apoc.import.graphml('queryNodesFoo.graphml', {readLabels: true});
CALL apoc.import.graphml('queryNodesBar.graphml', {readLabels: true});
CALL apoc.import.graphml('queryRelationship.graphml',
  {readLabels: true, source: {label: 'Foo', id: 'name'}, target: {label: 'Bar', id: 'age'}});