domvas
Hello,
I’m pleased and a bit proud to present you seraph a library to define schema and query Neo4j database.
Again?
Yes again…
Since I’ve started Elixir, I’ve seen here and there attempts to develop a library to use Neo4j nicely, and even an adapter to Ecto… released by me.
But nothing was satisfying enough and ecto_neo4j was, and is still, a big disappointment. ecto is relational database oriented, and there is more or less only one entity is this case: table. But when it comes to graph, you have two entities: node and relationship. Then all I’ve done with ecto_neo4j was to force this two entities and graph concepts into a relational shape. Code became awful because of hacks everywhere, usage was limited and so restricted that you can’t model you graph database as you wish.
Then I drop this project and start seraph.
seraph is heavily inspired by ecto because using ecto to work with database is joy. And I tried to bring this joy to Neo4j graph database.
It’s still the beginning, a LOT is missing but it’s a first (good?) step for a nice library to work with Neo4j with schema, nice query api, etc.
Hope you’ll enjoy it.
Testers and contributors
Because of the amount of work, help would be appreciated, so if you want to test, to add some features, write some docs, please do!
So, quickly, what you can do if you don’t want to read the docs.
Schema
a node schema is like this:
defmodule GraphApp.Blog.User do
use Seraph.Schema.Node
import Seraph.Changeset
alias GraphApp.Blog.User
alias GraphApp.Blog.Relationship
alias GraphApp.Blog.Relationship.NoProperties
node "User" do
property :firstName, :string
property :lastName, :string
property :email, :string
# You can define two relatinship with same type but pointing to different node
# without problem
outgoing_relationship("WROTE", GraphApp.Blog.Post, :posts, Relationship.Wrote,
cardinality: :many
)
outgoing_relationship(
"WROTE",
GraphApp.Blog.Comment,
:comments,
NoProperties.UserToComment.Wrote,
cardinality: :many
)
# A relationship can ends to the same node it starts
outgoing_relationship(
"FOLLOWS",
GraphApp.Blog.User,
:followed,
NoProperties.UserToUser.Follows,
cardinality: :many
)
end
# classic changeset
def changeset(%User{} = user, params \\ %{}) do
user
|> cast(params, [:firstName, :lastName, :email])
|> validate_required([:firstName, :lastName, :email])
end
end
a relationship schema:
defmodule GraphApp.Blog.Relationship.Wrote do
use Seraph.Schema.Relationship
@cardinality [outgoing: :one, incoming: :many]
relationship "WROTE" do
start_node GraphApp.Blog.User
end_node GraphApp.Blog.Post
property :when, :utc_datetime
end
end
Atomic operation with Repo.*
Each entity has its Repo.* functions:
- get
- get_by
- set
- create
…
Query DSL
And you can write nice queries with the query api.
import Seraph.Query
query = match [{u, User}],
where: [u.firstName == "John"],
return: [u]
GraphApp.Repo.all(query)
----
match([
{u, GraphApp.Blog.User, %{firstName: "Jim"}},
{u2, GraphApp.Blog.User, %{firstName: "Jane"}},
[{u}, [rel, GraphApp.Blog.Relationship.NoProperties.UserToUser.Follows], {u2}]
])
|> delete([rel])
|> GraphApp.Repo.execute()
Where Next?
Trending in Announcing
Other Trending Topics
Latest on Elixir Forum
Sponsor Spotlight
Practical resources that improve the lives of professional developers.
Categories:
Sub Categories:
Forums
Popular Tags
- #ecto
- #liveview
- #troubleshooting
- #learning-elixir
- #library
- #deployment
- #erlang
- #testing
- #genserver
- #mix
- #absinthe
- #remote-other
- #otp
- #plug
- #how-to-question
- #macros
- #postgres
- #elixirconf
- #channels
- #exunit
- #discussion
- #code-sync
- #podcasts
- #javascript
- #onsite
- #dialyzer
- #docker
- #authentication
- #umbrella
- #full-time-contract
- #podcasts-by-brainlid
- #ai
- #ecto-query
- #elixirconf-us
- #blog-post
- #elixir-ls
- #phoenix_html
- #iex
- #graphql
- #genstage
- #websockets
- #supervisor
- #advent-of-code
- #distillery
- #processes
- #elixirconf-eu
- #api
- #forms
- #metaprogramming
- #hex
Our Sponsors
Build Elixir applications with speed and confidence.
Supporting innovation across the BEAM ecosystem.
We build reliable cloud platforms for business-critical systems.
Error tracking, logs, uptime, and Just Enough APM. Built for developers.
Elixir, Erlang & BEAM conferences from Code Sync - join us in 2026!
Master modern tools, write cleaner code, and tackle real-world challenges.
Bringing learning, work and compliance together since 1987.
Producing high quality Elixir screencasts since 2017.
The team behind Membrane, Popcorn, LiveDebugger. Available for hire.
Courses that'll move you from confusion to "Aha, now I get it!"
Showing Posts 1 to 7- Show Best Posts
- Show All (oldest first)
- Show All (newest first)
josefrichter
oh god I wish I had a nice project to use with neo4j. it must be fun using it!
swelham
Great work! I have been wanting this to exist for some time but never been able to get around to building it myself. I have some initial thoughts listed below that came to mind whilst looking through the guides and I will definitely be looking to contribute where I can.
Repoin the supervision tree. This provides more flexibility and if the user wants a global config they can still do it.utc_datetime_usec. I believe this plays better with Elixir’s datetime module (no need forDatetime.truncateeverywhere) and I seem to remember reading that the ecto core team wish they did this but now can’t due to backwards compatibility.But honestly it’s looking really good so far!
domvas
Thank for the kind words! It makes me think that the package is useful
What is the goal? Having the ability to connect / disconnect from database at runtime?
In fact, this update is quite trivial and can (will) be added.
Keep in mind that multi-tenancy is already supported and that in Neo4j, you can manage multiple databases on the same server (Database administration - Operations Manual)
Noted.
I haven’t implement the
timestampsmacro so it will be withutc_datetime_usec.In fact, the
dateformat in Neo4j is converted to datetime with microseconds in Elixir so I already get bitten when I usedutc_datetimefor the exampleI think you’re not going to be the last to have remarks on this point.
In any case, there’s a tradeoff:
One in all, the best thing I can do is to implement all 3, defaulting to CamelCased and add config options to let each user decide what he prefers
swelham
Yeah, it’s definitely useful
The goal is more about flexibility for the user and allowing them to decide how to configure things. Changing the connection info at runtime is a nice benefit (maybe an edge case) but would allow specifying the connection details at app boot time instead of compile time.
Is this a naming convention in neo4j or is there some technical benefit for doing this? Though I agree it’s best to stick to conventions where possible.
For handwritten queries using seraph maybe having a macro that supports handling field names might work out. Ecto has a macro for dealing with dynamic fields (
field/2) perhaps something similar to that or maybe something like fragments which allows a field value to be passed in. Honestly, I haven’t given it much thought at this point but would like to dive into the code and check it out more.domvas
For labels and types, it’s Neo4j’s recommendation and can be seen as a convention.
For properties, it’s based on what I’ve seen during my trainings and many talks / tutorials. So a majority of users has adopted this syntax but it’s not really a convention, then letting the end-user decide could be nice.
Having a
field/2-like macro can be tricky to implement but not impossible then it will be implemented. It is in fact one the many features that still missing (like fragments…)pmangalakader
Trying it for some fun project, easy to use it like ecto seems excellent. Would love to see transaction support in the future releases.
alaadahmed
wow really nice work you have done @domvas, really appreciate your work, I am working on some big project that I intend to use neo4j for it. I am reading your guides and I am fascinated. I hope you still maintain this library and keep it up to date.