If you haven't seen it before, I highly recommend first watch this video from fireship on 7 Different Database Paradigms.
Neo4J
Neo4j, a Graph Database, recently released their managed database service Aura which has a free tier. This means us developers can take Neo4J out for a proper test drive and see if this is truly the database of our dreams. In this guide I'll show you how to setup your connections and models in node so that way you can then import and use in your app. The basic idea doesn't really change from language to language.
Step #1 - Setup
Create a new aura account
It will immediately take you to create a database, give it a name and select blank
copy the login credentials given
wait a few minutes for the database to generate itself
once it's done spinning up copy over the DB URI under connect
Step #2 - Setup Node Project
create a folder for your project
npm init -y
Then we will install the Neo4J Object Graph Mapper (OGM)
npm install @neo4j/graphql-ogmThen we will install the Neo4J drivers and graphql
npm install graphql neo4j-driverinstall dotenv
npm install dotenvcreate a
.db.envfile, fill it in with your DB details
URI=neo4j+s://XXXXXXXX.databases.neo4j.io
DB_USERNAME=neo4j
DB_PASSWORD=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
- create a .gitignore file
.env
.db.env
/node_modules
- create a file called connection.js
// get env variables
require("dotenv").config({ path: "./.db.env" });
const { URI, DB_USERNAME, DB_PASSWORD } = process.env;
//Import Dependencies
const { OGM } = require("@neo4j/graphql-ogm");
const neo4j = require("neo4j-driver");
// Define your models and relationships using graphql type syntax
const typeDefs = `
type Dog {
id: ID
name: String
age: Int
}
`;
// Establish Neo4J Connection using Neo4j drivers
const driver = neo4j.driver(URI, neo4j.auth.basic(DB_USERNAME, DB_PASSWORD));
// Connect our typedefs and connection to the OGM
const ogm = new OGM({ typeDefs, driver });
// create a model that refers to one of defined types
const Dog = ogm.model("Dog");
// export all my models
module.exports = {
Dog
}
Now you can import our dog model into any project you have to interact with the database. Here is an example:
- Creating a Dog
const {Dog} = require("./connection")
const query = async () => {
const result = await Dog.create({input: [{name: "Spot", age: 8}]})
console.log(result)
}
query()
- Getting all Dogs
const {Dog} = require("./connection")
const query = async () => {
const result = await Dog.find()
console.log(result)
}
query()
- Updating a Dog
const {Dog} = require("./connection")
const query = async () => {
const result = await Dog.update({
where: {name: "Spot"},
update: {name: "Spot II"}
})
console.log(result)
}
query()
- Deleting a Dog
const { Dog } = require("./connection");
const query = async () => {
const result = await Dog.delete({
where: { name: "Spot II" },
});
console.log(result);
};
query();
Conclusion
It's not hard to use Neo4J and it makes defining your relationships using the GraphQL syntax very straightforward. Read more here on the documentation
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