I've apparently been interpreting "labels" as "types" when I've been creating nodes. For example looking at a list of software products I would have: software products (Product) and operating systems (OS)
sw: Product
os:OS
If I'm understanding the label concept correctly, I could actually have something like:
p:Product:OS
That meant it was both. When I modeled it (in Arrow) they were distinctly different types of nodes with the same properties.
Am I misunderstanding the concept and usage of labels?
Labels basically in Neo4j represents kind of grouping of nodes under a category that are similar in nature. For example in here Product being a group of all product nodes and OS being the group of all operating system nodes.
Neo4j allows us to assign a node to more than 1 label, i.e. a single node could be a part of more than 1 group. So yes, we can have a node that contains both labels :Product as well as :OS . This wouldn't mean that both groups/labels are combined but this would mean that the node having both these labels fall under both the groups Product as well as OS.
On Neo4j through cypher when a node is created it can have one or more labels mentioned at that time of creation or once created can have more labels added to it through cypher. Whenever a new label gets added to a node that node gets added to the group/label on the newly added one as well as remains a part of the already existing one's.
While modelling on individual labels basis, they might seem as 2 distinctly different types of node with same properties but they actually can be understood as 2 separate reference to the same node/object shared under both the labels/groups.