Returning a list of labels and counts with GraphQL

Drivers & Stacks GraphQL & GRANDstack
1

Not sure whether this is possible, I tried and couldn't get it to work. I'd like to run a query to return a list of label names and the associated node counts based on this cypher query:
MATCH (n)
RETURN labels(n), COUNT(labels(n))

I thought I might be able to create a new type such as

type Item{
Name: String!
Count: Int!
}

type Query{
itemList: [Item] @cypher(statement: "MATCH (n) RETURN labels(n) as Name,COUNT(n) as Count")
}

However it returns an error. Am I trying something that is not possible at all or am I taking the wrong approach.

Thanks for any pointers.

2

Why are you trying to get all node labels back? A little more information about your use case would probably help.

3

I'd like to generate a bar chart that visually shows which labels, i.e. node types, have the most number of items. Furthermore I'd like to extend this into a generic query with a WHERE clause such as this:
MATCH (n) WHERE n.Name = 'Some Value' RETURN labels(n), COUNT(n)
This would tell me where I do have a hit in my set of labels. Running the cypher queries works fine, however, I was wondering whether I can use this approach in GraphQL. I thought the approach with a @cypher directive might work, but it doesn't. So I am obviously missing something.
Does this help?

4

You might be able to accomplish this with an interface type. Check out the grand stack docs here neo4j-graphql-js/graphql-interface-union-types.md at master · neo4j-graphql/neo4j-graphql-js · GitHub

I've done something similar with this before. This an example from my code:

const HOME_QUERY = gql`
  query {
    LandAlert {
      id
      title
      text
      days
      date
      tract {
        id
        name
      }
    }
    ROWAlert {
      id
      title
      text
      days
      date
      ROW {
        id
        projectName
      }
    }
    WellAlert {
      id
      title
      text
      days
      date
      well {
        id
        name
      }
    }
    LeaseAlert {
      id
      title
      text
      days
      date
      lease {
        id
        leaseName
      }
    }
    Reminder {
      id
      title
      text
      days
      date
    }
}

You would have to add your logic in to get a count of each type but as long as your know what you're after you can query it like that.

5

Thanks, Michael. I tried the interface option, but that doesn't seem to work for my use case. However, it gave me an idea for a work around that I could potentially work with. It would require a lot of work, but it might allow me to do what I had in mind.
My request doesn't seem to me such a strange idea, hence I was hoping there would be a more direct solution. Especially since it is possible to achieve it by running a cypher query on the database.

In any case, thanks again for the suggestion.

6

Yeah sometimes the GraphQL layer makes it rougher than it should be to implement things. The only other thing I could think of would to be to return a map or JSON type object and work with that, which might be easier.