What's the significance of [, or [:

General Graph Academy
1

Could someone explain the significance of:
[DIRECTED] [:DIRECTED] the ':'

There are times I see such as [d:DIRECTED] which makes sense, but then I see:
[:DIRECTED] & [DIRECTED] used as is! What's the significance of the ':' in these situations where there's no reference var before the ':'?

Thanks in anticipation :)

2

Hi,

The value before the : is the variable, the value after the : is the type.

(p:Person)-[d:DIRECTED]->(m:Movie)

d is the variable you can use to refer relationship, :DIRECTED filters the match so only DIRECTED relationships are return.

Using [DIRECTED] would result in:

  • the variable being called DIRECTED
  • all relationships being returned, as there is no type after a :

I did a quick search through the graphacademy course content and couldnt find the use of [DIRECTED] but please let me know if there are occurrences of this being used as I suspect it is in error.

Martin

3

Thank you Martin,
I will look to see where I have seen relationships used without the colon & update here.

While I have your attention, I have just sent a feedback email about some of the video content within the courses, here's a typical example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFz20_OFZ_s
My frustration comes from been shown an example then it been hidden/collapsed while it is explained. The frustration of having to keep stopping, rewinding the video to see the example query & then go back to where she is speaking, but now I can't see the query being discussed, etc. FYI: I did some rough timings and I got an average viewing of example of between 7-10 seconds.
Do you know of working patterns that will negate this frustration? how do others cope with it?

Apologies for sounding grumpy, but I've been following these videos all morning!