Erlang client library for Neo4J

This is a lightweight wrapper for Neo4j REST API.

Current version: 0.2.1

Breaking changes from 0.1

jsx has been replaced by jiffy. This means that you now absolutely have to use EEP0018 (refer to jiffy documentation for a more concise description. This readme and all comments throughout the code have been updated to reflect this change.

What?

Implements all of Neo4J 2.0.0's REST API as referenced here with one caveat:
Does not implement streaming API
Uses jiffy for JSON
Uses hackney for http queries
Does not support HTTPS (yet?)

How?

Sample session

Neo = neo4j:connect([{base_uri, <<"http://localhost:7474/db/data/">>}]),

StartNode = neo4j:get_node(Neo, 101),
EndNode = neo4j:create_node(Neo, {[{<<"prop1">>, <<"key1">>}]}),

Relationship1 = neo4:create_relationship(StartNode, EndNode, <<"KNOWS">>),
Relationship2 = neo4:create_relationship(StartNode, EndNode, <<"KNOWS">>, {[{<<"prop2">>, <<"value2">>}]}),

ok = neo4j:delete_relationship(Relationship1).

Read on for more details, or refer to comments in code or to the test suite.

Details

The wrapper follows Neo4j's REST API as close as possible. See code comments for direct links to each method/feature implemented. For example:

%%
%% http://docs.neo4j.org/chunked/stable/rest-api-nodes.html#rest-api-create-node-with-properties
%%
-spec create_node(neo4j_root(), proplists:proplist()) -> neo4j_node() | {error, term()}.
create_node(Neo, Props) ->
  {_, URI} = find(<<"node">>, 1, Neo),
  Payload = jiffy:encode(Props),
  create(URI, Payload).

That link will tell you exactly what's going on and what you should expect.

Errors

There are two types of errors the wrapper returns:

{error, atom()} — some generic errors like {error, not_found} (which you can use for paged traversals):

> neo4j:get_node(Neo, 10000).
{error,not_found}

{error, {Status::integer(), URI::binary(), Error::proplists:proplist()} — errors returned by Neo4j. Example of such an error (using unique indexing):

> neo4j:unique_create_node(Neo, [{<<"prop">>, <<"val">>}], <<"index">>, <<"key">>, <<"value">>, <<"create_or_fail">>).
[{<<"self">>,
  <<"http://localhost:7474/db/data/index/node/index/key/value/191">>},
 {<<"extensions">>,[]},
 {<<"paged_traverse">>,
  <<"http://localhost:7474/db/data/node/191/paged/traverse/{returnType}{?pageSize,leaseTime}">>},
 {<<"labels">>,
...

> neo4j:unique_create_node(Neo, [{<<"prop">>, <<"val">>}], <<"index">>, <<"key">>, <<"value">>, <<"create_or_fail">>).

error,{409,
        <<"http://localhost:7474/db/data/index/node/index?uniqueness=create_or_fail">>,
        [{<<"extensions">>,[]},
         {<<"paged_traverse">>,
...

As expected, Neo4j returned a HTTP 409 Conflict code.

Assumptions

Location header

If an operation returns a HTTP 201 Created with a Location header, the wrapper will prepend a {<<"self">>, Location} to the proplist returned. Be wary of this especially when using paged traversals.

> Node = neo4j:get_node(Neo, 101).
> Body = {[ {<<"order">>, <<"breadth_first">>}
          , {<<"uniqueness">>, <<"none">>}
          , {<<"return_filter">>, {[ {<<"language">>, <<"builtin">>}
                                   , {<<"name">>, <<"all">>}
                                   ]}
            }
          ]}.
> PT = neo4j:paged_traverse(Node, Body).
[ %% <<"self">> is prepended
 {<<"self">>,
  <<"http://localhost:7474/db/data/node/101/paged/traverse/node/2e23bfca61144b0f91b446fb6be562b6">>},
 %% actual data
 {[{<<"labels">>,
 ...

No JSON, just EEP0018 structures

Even for complex queries (such as Cypher queries or transactions) you never send in raw JSON, only proplists representing your objects:

See the example in "Binaries" below

Binaries

All string data and all URL parameters sent to Neo4J are assumed to be binaries.

As an example, let's create a paged traverser

Neo = neo4j:connect([{base_uri, BaseUri}]),
Node = neo4j:get_node(Neo, 101),
Body = {[ {<<"order">>, <<"breadth_first">>}
        , {<<"uniqueness">>, <<"none">>}
        , {<<"return_filter">>, {[ {<<"language">>, <<"builtin">>}
                                 , {<<"name">>, <<"all">>}
                                 ]}
          }
        ]},
PT = neo4j:paged_traverse(Node, Body, [ {<<"returnType">>, ReturnType}
                                      , {<<"leaseTime">>, LeaseTime}
                                      , {<<"pageSize">>, PageSize}
                                      ]).

Does not do stuff for you

Will not urlencode your parameters (as required here). You'll have to do it manually
Will not assume that an integer/url references a valid node/relationship. You'll have to retrieve nodes/relationships yourself. Typical workflow looks something like this:

Neo = neo4j:connect([{base_uri, <<"http://localhost:7474/db/data/">>}]),

%% will not work:
neo4j:get_node_properties(101).

%% will not work:
neo4j:get_node_properties(<<"http://localhost:7474/db/data/node/101">>).

%% correct way:
Node = neo4j:get_node(N, 101),
neo4j:get_node_properties(Node).

%% also correct:
Node2 = neo4j:get_node(N, <<"http://localhost:7474/db/data/node/101">>),
neo4j:get_node_properties(Node2).

Contributing

Yes, please! :) If you have ideas, suggestions, pull requests or issues, do not hesitate to send them my way

sdebnath/neo4j-erlang