Spring Data Neo4j, @MapResult, Cypher, Casing and You!

A quick tip for those of you who are using Cypher with Spring Data Neo4j (SDN):

If you're using the @MapResult way in your Neo4j repositories, be careful of what you use in the corresponding @ResultColumn annotations.

For example, let's say you have the following repository definition (assume that you don't want to use the built-in findAll() method in this case; this example can be extended to other mapping results WLOG):

public interface MyRepository extends GraphRepository<mymodel>, RelationshipOperationsRepository<mymodel> {
 @Query("START n=node:__types__(className='com.yourorg.yourproject.entities.MyModel') RETURN COLLECT(n)")
 MyModelData getAllMyModels();
  
 @MapResult
 public interface MyModelData
 {
  @ResultColumn("COLLECT(n)")
  Iterable<mymodel> getMyModels();
 }
}
</mymodel></mymodel></mymodel>

What you'd expect getAllMyModels() to do is to simply return all of those nodes that meet the Cypher criteria (note that the Cypher query above is very similar to what is generated by SDN in its findAll() method; the index referenced is, in fact, created and persisted by SDN).

However, if you call this code, you will get an error similar to the following:

"org.springframework.data.neo4j.support.conversion.NoSuchColumnFoundException: Expexted a column named COLLECT(n) to be in the result set."

You're probably scratching your head and asking yourself at this point, "But I am returning 'COLLECT(n)'!  It's right there in the Cypher query!"

And you're completely right--it is there!

However, try running that same query in the Neo4j web console (wherever your graph database is residing).

Dig through the results, and you'll see that the column returned isn't, in fact, "COLLECT(n)", but, "collect(n)".

Yep, you got it!  It's case sensitive!

So if you change

@ResultColumn("COLLECT(n)")

...to...

@ResultColumn("collect(n)")

...(note that casing of "collect") you'll be good as gold.

Remember that the next time you're diving deep into SDN.

And, as an update, I continue to work on the project I started back in June, and am finally making some headway. I'm coming across some interesting stuff, and I hope to share more in the coming weeks.

We'll see you on the next post!