I am building a REST API which connects to a NEO4J instance. I am using the koa-neo4j library as the basis (https://github.com/assister-ai/koa-neo4j-starter-kit). I am a beginner at all these technologies but thanks to some help from this forum I have the basic functionality working. For example the below code allows me to create a new node with the label "metric" and set the name and dateAdded propertis.
URL:
/metric?metricName=Test&dateAdded=2/21/2017
index.js
app.defineAPI({
method: 'POST',
route: '/api/v1/imm/metric',
cypherQueryFile: './src/api/v1/imm/metric/createMetric.cyp'
});
createMetric.cyp"
CREATE (n:metric {
name: $metricName,
dateAdded: $dateAdded
})
return ID(n) as id
However, I am struggling to know how I can approach more complicated examples. How can I handle situations when I don't know how many properties will be added when creating a new node beforehand or when I want to create multiple nodes in a single post statement. Ideally I would like to be able to pass something like JSON as part of the POST which would contain all of the nodes, labels and properties that I want to create. Is something like this possible? I tried using the below Cypher query and passing a JSON string in the POST body but it didn't work.
UNWIND $props AS properties
CREATE (n:metric)
SET n = properties
RETURN n
Would I be better off switching tothe Neo4j Rest API instead of the BOLT protocol and the KOA-NEO4J framework. From my research I thought it was better to use BOLT but I want to have a Rest API as the middle layer between my front and back end so I am willing to change over if this will be easier in the longer term.
Thanks for the help!
Your Cypher syntax is bad in a couple of ways.
UNWIND only accepts a collection as its argument, not a string.
SET n = properties is only legal if properties is a map, not a string.
This query should work for creating a single node (assuming that $props is a map containing all the properties you want to store with the newly created node):
CREATE (n:metric $props)
RETURN n
If you want to create multiple nodes, then this query (essentially the same as yours) should work (but only if $prop_collection is a collection of maps):
UNWIND $prop_collection AS props
CREATE (n:metric)
SET n = props
RETURN n
I too have faced difficulties when trying to pass complex types as arguments to neo4j, this has to do with type conversions between js and cypher over bolt and there is not much one could do except for filing an issue in the official neo4j JavaScript driver repo. koa-neo4j uses the official driver under the hood.
One way to go about such scenarios in koa-neo4j is using JavaScript to manipulate the arguments before sending to Cypher:
https://github.com/assister-ai/koa-neo4j#preprocess-lifecycle
Also possible to further manipulate the results of a Cypher query using postProcess lifecycle hook:
https://github.com/assister-ai/koa-neo4j#postprocess-lifecycle
Related
I'm able to generate query for multi inserts or update thanks to pg-promise helpers but I was wondering if I could follow the advice of the author and put all queries outside of my javascript code (See here https://github.com/vitaly-t/pg-promise/wiki/SQL-Files and here : https://github.com/vitaly-t/pg-promise-demo).
When I use the insert helpers, the return query looks like :
INSERT INTO "education"("candidate_id","title","content","degree","school_name","start_date","still_in","end_date","picture_url") VALUES('6','My degree','Business bachelor','Bachelor +','USC','2018-05-15T02:00:00.000+02:00'::date,false,null::date,null),('6','Another degree','Engineering','Master degree','City University','2018-05-15T02:00:00.000+02:00'::date,false,null::date,null)
The idea is that I don't know how many inserts I want to do at the same time, so it has to be dynamic.
The following code doesn't work as I'm passing an array of object instead of an object :
db.none(`INSERT INTO "education"("candidate_id","title","content","degree","school_name","start_date","still_in","end_date","picture_url")
VALUES($<candidate_id>, $<title>, $<content>, $<degree>, $<school_name>, $<start_date>, $<still_in>, $<end_date>, $<picture_url>)`, data)
This code spreads the object but is still not correct to make a proper query :
db.none(`INSERT INTO "education"("candidate_id","title","content","degree","school_name","start_date","still_in","end_date","picture_url")
VALUES($1:list)`,
[data])
Any idea ? Is it at least possible or in the case where I don't know how many records I want to insert in advance I have to call pgp.helpers everytime ?
You confuse static and dynamic SQL. SQL files are there for SQL queries that are mainly static, i.e. you still can inject dynamically a lot, but when most of the query is dynamic, there is no longer any point putting it into an SQL file.
And the helpers namespace is there for dynamic queries only. So you are asking about two separate things, to join things that do not need to be joined.
TLDR
Is there a way to limit queryByExample to a collection in NodeJS?
Problem faced
I have a complex query with some optional fields (i.e. sometimes some search fields will be omitted). So I need to create a query dynamically, e.g. in JSON. QueryByExample seems to be the right tool to use here as it gives me that flexibility to pass a JSON. However my problem is that I would like to limit my search to only one collection or directory.
e.g. I was hoping for something like
searchJSON = {
title: { $word: "test" },
description: { $word: "desc" }
};
//query
db.documents.query(qb.where(
qb.collection("collectionName"),
qb.byExample(searchJSON)
)).result()...
In this case searchJSON could have been built dynamically, for example maybe sometimes title may be omitted from the search.
This doesn't work because the query builder only allows queryByExample to be the only query. But I'd instead like to built a dynamic search query which is limited to a collection or directory.
At present, I think you would have to express the query with QueryBuilder instead of Query By Example using
qb.and([
qb.collection('collectionName'),
qb.word('title', 'test'),
qb.word('description', 'desc')
])
See http://docs.marklogic.com/jsdoc/queryBuilder.html#word
That said, it should be possible for the Node.js API to relax that restriction based on the fixes in MarkLogic 9.0-2
Please file an issue on https://github.com/marklogic/node-client-api
Since, I can get parameters from both the methods using a code similar to the one below:
req.params.<PARAM NAME> in single/many separate app.METHOD function(s)
(think this may result in code repetition)
&
app.params(<ARRAY>,<CALLBACK>) function, independent of the app.METHOD functions, and called if the URL contains any parameter (:id, :name .etc)
What are the use-cases to apply one over the other?
My best guess would be is using app.params for parameter validation or some sort of preprocessing. For example the express docs provide and example where you attach req.user information to the request using app.params and after that you can work directly with the user information instead of processing the parameter again. Using req.params would be more specific in terms of processing the specific query. For example I'd use req.params for a REST endpoint which should perform an operation by id (update/delete) as in general there shouldn't be any additional preprocessing involder.
I have been exclusively using cypher queries of this client for Neo4j because there is no out of the box way of doing many things. One of those id to get nodes. There is no way to retrieve them without knowing their id, which is very low level. Any idea on how to run a
$client->findOne('property','value');
?
It should be straightforward but it isn't from the documentation.
Make Indexes on the properties you want to search, from a newly created $personNode
$personIndex = new \Everyman\Neo4j\NodeIndex($client, 'person');
$personIndex->add($personNode, 'name', $personNode->name);
Then later to search, the new PHP object $personIndex will reference the same, populated index as above.
$personIndex = new \Everyman\Neo4j\NodeIndex($client, 'person');
$match = $personIndex->findOne('name', 'edoceo');
I'm writing a REST api in node js that will execute a sql query and send the results;
in the request I need to send the WHERE conditions; ex:
GET 127.0.0.1:5007/users //gets the list of users
GET 127.0.0.1:5007/users
id = 1 //gets the user with id 1
Right now the conditions are passed from the client to the rest api in the request's headers.
In the API I'm using sequelize, an ORM that needs to receive WHERE conditions in a particular form (an object); ex: having the condition:
(x=1 AND (y=2 OR z=3)) OR (x=3 AND y=1)
this needs to be formatted as a nested object:
-- x=1
-- AND -| -- y=2
| -- OR ----|
| -- z=3
-- OR -|
|
| -- x=3
-- AND -|
-- y=1
so the object would be:
Sequelize.or (
Sequelize.and (
{x=1},
Sequelize.or(
{y=2},
{z=3}
)
),
Sequelize.and (
{x=3},
{y=1}
)
)
Now I'm trying to pass a simple string (like "(x=1 AND (y=2 OR z=3)) OR (x=3 AND y=1)"), but then I will need a function on the server that can convert the string in the needed object (this method in my opinion has the advantage that the developer writing the client, can pass the where conditions in a simple way, like using sql, and this method is also indipendent from the used ORM, with no need to change the client if we need to change the server or use a different ORM);
The function to read and convert the conditions' string into an object is giving me headache (I'm trying to write one without success, so if you have some examples about how to do something like this...)
What I would like to get is a route capable of executing almost any kind of sql query and give the results:
now I have a different route for everything:
127.0.0.1:5007/users //to get all users
127.0.0.1:5007/users/1 //to get a single user
127.0.0.1:5007/lastusers //to get user registered in the last month
and so on for the other tables i need to query (one route for every kind of request I need in the client);
instead I would like to have only one route, something like:
127.0.0.1:5007/request
(when calling this route I will pass the table name and the conditions' string)
Do you think this solution would be a good solution or you generally use other ways to handle this kind of things?
Do you have any idea on how to write a function to convert the conditions' string into the desired object?
Any suggestion would be appreciated ;)
I would strongly advise you not to expose any part of your database model to your clients. Doing so means you can't change anything you expose without the risk of breaking the clients. One suggestion as far as what you've supplied is that you can and should use query parameters to cut down on the number of endpoints you've got.
GET /users //to get all users
GET /users?registeredInPastDays=30 //to get user registered in the last month
GET /users/1 //to get a single user
Obviously "registeredInPastDays" should be renamed to something less clumsy .. it's just an example.
As far as the conditions string, there ought to be plenty of parsers available online. The grammar looks very straightforward.
IMHO the main disadvantage of your solution is that you are creating just another API for quering data. Why create sthm from scratch if it is already created? You should use existing mature query API and focus on your business logic rather then inventing sthm new.
For example, you can take query syntax from Odata. Many people have been developing that standard for a long time. They have already considered different use cases and obstacles for query API.
Resources are located with a URI. You can use or mix three ways to address them:
Hierarchically with a sequence of path segments:
/users/john/posts/4711
Non hierarchically with query parameters:
/users/john/posts?minVotes=10&minViews=1000&tags=java
With matrix parameters which affect only one path segment:
/users;country=ukraine/posts
This is normally sufficient enough but it has limitations like the maximum length. In your case a problem is that you can't easily describe and and or conjunctions with query parameters. But you can use a custom or standard query syntax. For instance if you want to find all cars or vehicles from Ford except the Capri with a price between $10000 and $20000 Google uses the search parameter
q=cars+OR+vehicles+%22ford%22+-capri+%2410000..%2420000
(the %22 is a escaped ", the %24 a escaped $).
If this does not work for your case and you want to pass data outside of the URI the format is just a matter of your taste. Adding a custom header like X-Filter may be a valid approach. I would tend to use a POST. Although you just want to query data this is still RESTful if you treat your request as the creation of a search result resource:
POST /search HTTP/1.1
your query-data
Your server should return the newly created resource in the Location header:
HTTP/1.1 201 Created
Location: /search/3
The result can still be cached and you can bookmark it or send the link. The downside is that you need an additional POST.