The Neo4j Manual v2.0.24.3. Social Movie Database

Our example graph consists of movies with title and year and actors with a name. Actors have ACTS_IN relationships to movies, which represents the role they played. This relationship also has a role attribute.

So far, we queried the movie data; now let’s update the graph too.

CREATE (matrix1:Movie { title : 'The Matrix', year : '1999-03-31' })
CREATE (matrix2:Movie { title : 'The Matrix Reloaded', year : '2003-05-07' })
CREATE (matrix3:Movie { title : 'The Matrix Revolutions', year : '2003-10-27' })
CREATE (keanu:Actor { name:'Keanu Reeves' })
CREATE (laurence:Actor { name:'Laurence Fishburne' })
CREATE (carrieanne:Actor { name:'Carrie-Anne Moss' })
CREATE (keanu)-[:ACTS_IN { role : 'Neo' }]->(matrix1)
CREATE (keanu)-[:ACTS_IN { role : 'Neo' }]->(matrix2)
CREATE (keanu)-[:ACTS_IN { role : 'Neo' }]->(matrix3)
CREATE (laurence)-[:ACTS_IN { role : 'Morpheus' }]->(matrix1)
CREATE (laurence)-[:ACTS_IN { role : 'Morpheus' }]->(matrix2)
CREATE (laurence)-[:ACTS_IN { role : 'Morpheus' }]->(matrix3)
CREATE (carrieanne)-[:ACTS_IN { role : 'Trinity' }]->(matrix1)
CREATE (carrieanne)-[:ACTS_IN { role : 'Trinity' }]->(matrix2)
CREATE (carrieanne)-[:ACTS_IN { role : 'Trinity' }]->(matrix3)

We will add ourselves, friends and movie ratings.

Here’s how to add a node for yourself and return it, let’s say your name is “Me”:

CREATE (me:User { name: "Me" })
RETURN me;

Let’s check if the node is there:

MATCH (me:User { name: "Me" })
RETURN me.name;

Add a movie rating:

MATCH (me:User { name: "Me" }),(movie:Movie { title: "The Matrix" })
CREATE (me)-[:RATED { stars : 5, comment : "I love that movie!" }]->(movie);

Which movies did I rate?

MATCH (me:User { name: "Me" }),(me)-[rating:RATED]->(movie)
RETURN movie.title, rating.stars, rating.comment;

We need a friend!

CREATE (friend:User { name: "A Friend" })
RETURN friend;

Add our friendship idempotently, so we can re-run the query without adding it several times. We return the relationship to check that it has not been created several times.

MATCH (me:User { name: "Me" }),(friend:User { name: "A Friend" })
CREATE UNIQUE (me)-[friendship:FRIEND]->(friend)
RETURN friendship;

You can rerun the query, see that it doesn’t change anything the second time!

Let’s update our friendship with a since property:

MATCH (me:User { name: "Me" })-[friendship:FRIEND]->(friend:User { name: "A Friend" })
SET friendship.since='forever'
RETURN friendship;

Let’s pretend us being our friend and wanting to see which movies our friends have rated.

MATCH (me:User { name: "A Friend" })-[:FRIEND]-(friend)-[rating:RATED]->(movie)
RETURN movie.title, avg(rating.stars) AS stars, collect(rating.comment) AS comments, count(*);

That’s too little data, let’s add some more friends and friendships.

MATCH (me:User { name: "Me" })
FOREACH (i IN range(1,10)| CREATE (friend:User { name: "Friend " + i }),(me)-[:FRIEND]->(friend));

Show all our friends:

MATCH (me:User { name: "Me" })-[r:FRIEND]->(friend)
RETURN type(r) AS friendship, friend.name;