Working with Graphs

In graph databases, the database system graphs data into network-like structures consisting of vertices and edges. In the OrientDB Graph model, the database represents data through the concept of a property graph, which defines a vertex as an entity linked with other vertices and an edge, as an entity that links two vertices.

OrientDB ships with a generic vertex persistent class, called V, as well as a class for edges, called E. As an example, you can create a new vertex using the INSERT command with V.

orientdb> INSERT INTO V SET name='Jay'
 
Created record with RID #9:0

In effect, the Graph model database works on top of the underlying document model. But, in order to simplify this process, OrientDB introduces a new set of commands for managing graphs from the console. Instead of INSERT, use CREATE VERTEX

orientdb> CREATE VERTEX V SET name='Jay'
 
Created vertex with RID #9:1

By using the graph commands over the standard SQL syntax, OrientDB ensures that your graphs remain consistent. For more information on the particular commands, see the following pages:

• CREATE VERTEX
• DELETE VERTEX
• CREATE EDGE
• DELETE EDGE

Use Case: Social Network for Restaurant Patrons

While you have the option of working with vertexes and edges in your database as they are, you can also extend the standard V and E classes to suit the particular needs of your application. The advantages of this approach are,

• It grants better understanding about the meaning of these entities.
• It allows for optional constraints at the class level.
• It improves performance through better partitioning of entities.
• It allows for object-oriented inheritance among the graph elements.

For example, consider a social network based on restaurants. You need to start with a class for individual customers and another for the restaurants they patronize. Create these classes to extend the V class.

orientdb> CREATE CLASS Person EXTENDS V
 
orientdb> CREATE CLASS Restaurant EXTENDS V

Doing this creates the schema for your social network. Now that the schema is ready, populate the graph with data.

orientdb> CREATE VERTEX Person SET name='Luca'
 
Created record with RID #11:0
 
orientdb> CREATE VERTEX Person SET name='Bill'
 
Created record with RID #11:1
 
orientdb> CREATE VERTEX Person SET name='Jay'
 
Created record with RID #11:2
 
orientdb> CREATE VERTEX Restaurant SET name='Dante', type='Pizza'
 
Created record with RID #12:0
 
orientdb> CREATE VERTEX Restaurant SET name='Charlie', type='French'
 
Created record with RID #12:1

This adds three vertices to the Person class, representing individual users in the social network. It also adds two vertices to the Restaurant class, representing the restaurants that they patronize.

Creating Edges

For the moment, these vertices are independent of one another, tied together only by the classes to which they belong. That is, they are not yet connected by edges. Before you can make these connections, you first need to create a class that extends E.

orientdb> CREATE CLASS Eat EXTENDS E

This creates the class Eat, which extends the class E. Eat represents the relationship between the vertex Person and the vertex Restaurant.

When you create the edge from this class, note that the orientation of the vertices is important, because it gives the relationship its meaning. For instance, creating an edge in the opposite direction, (from Restaurant to Person), would call for a separate class, such as Attendee.

The user Luca eats at the pizza joint Dante. Create an edge that represents this connection:

orientdb> CREATE EDGE Eat FROM ( SELECT FROM Person WHERE name='Luca' )
          TO ( SELECT FROM Restaurant WHERE name='Dante' )

Creating Edges from Record ID

In the event that you know the Record ID of the vertices, you can connect them directly with a shorter and faster command. For example, the person Bill also eats at the restaurant Dante and the person Jay eats at the restaurant Charlie. Create edges in the class Eat to represent these connections.

orientdb> CREATE EDGE Eat FROM #11:1 TO #12:0
 
orientdb> CREATE EDGE Eat FROM #11:2 TO #12:1

Querying Graphs

In the above example you created and populated a small graph of a social network of individual users and the restaurants at which they eat. You can now begin to experiment with queries on a graph database.

To cross edges, you can use special graph functions, such as:

• OUT() To retrieve the adjacent outgoing vertices
• IN() To retrieve the adjacent incoming vertices
• BOTH() To retrieve the adjacent incoming and outgoing vertices

For example, to know all of the people who eat in the restaurant Dante, which has a Record ID of #12:0, you can access the record for that restaurant and traverse the incoming edges to discover which entries in the Person class connect to it.

orientdb> SELECT IN() FROM Restaurant WHERE name='Dante'
 
-------+----------------+
 @RID  | in             |
-------+----------------+
 #-2:1 | [#11:0, #11:1] |
-------+----------------+

This query displays the record ID’s from the Person class that connect to the restaurant Dante. In cases such as this, you can use the EXPAND() special function to transform the vertex collection in the result-set by expanding it.

orientdb> SELECT EXPAND( IN() ) FROM Restaurant WHERE name='Dante'
 
-------+-------------+-------------+---------+
 @RID  | @CLASS      | Name        | out_Eat |
-------+-------------+-------------+---------+
 #11:0 | Person      | Luca        | #12:0   |
 #11:1 | Person      | Bill        | #12:0   |
-------+-------------+-------------+---------+

Creating Edge to Connect Users

Your application at this point shows connections between individual users and the restaurants they patronize. While this is interesting, it does not yet function as a social network. To do so, you need to establish edges that connect the users to one another.

To begin, as before, create a new class that extends E:

orientdb> CREATE CLASS Friend EXTENDS E

The users Luca and Jay are friends. They have Record ID’s of #12:0 and #11:2. Create an edge that connects them.

orientdb> CREATE EDGE Friend FROM #12:0 TO #11:2

In the Friend relationship, orientation is not important. That is, if Luca is a friend of Jay’s then Jay is a friend of Luca’s. Therefore, you should use the BOTH() function.

orientdb> SELECT EXPAND( BOTH( 'Friend' ) ) FROM Person WHERE name = 'Luca'
 
-------+-------------+-------------+---------+-----------+
 @RID  | @CLASS      | Name        | out_Eat | in_Friend |
-------+-------------+-------------+---------+-----------+
 #11:2 | Person      | Jay         | #12:1   | #12:0     |
-------+-------------+-------------+---------+-----------+

Here, the BOTH() function takes the edge class Friend as an argument, crossing only relationships of the Friend kind, (that is, it skips the Eat class, at this time). Note in the result-set that the relationship with Luca, with a Record ID of #12:0 in the in_ field.

You can also now view all the restaurants patronized by friends of Luca.

orientdb> SELECT EXPAND( BOTH('Friend').out('Eat') ) FROM Person
          WHERE name='Luca'
 
-------+-------------+-------------+-------------+--------+
 @RID  | @CLASS      | Name        | Type        | in_Eat |
-------+-------------+-------------+-------------+--------+
 #12:1 | Restaurant  | Charlie     | French      | #11:2  |
-------+-------------+-------------+-------------+--------+

Lightweight Edges

In version 1.4.x, OrientDB begins to manage some edges as Lightweight Edges. Lightweight Edges do not have Record ID’s, but are physically stored as links within vertices. Note that OrientDB only uses a Lightweight Edge only when the edge has no properties, otherwise it uses the standard Edge.

From the logic point of view, Lightweight Edges are Edges in all effects, so that all graph functions work with them. This is to improve performance and reduce disk space.

Because Lightweight Edges don’t exist as separate records in the database, some queries won’t work as expected. For instance,

orientdb> SELECT FROM E

For most cases, an edge is used connecting vertices, so this query would not cause any problems in particular. But, it would not return Lightweight Edges in the result-set. In the event that you need to query edges directly, including those with no properties, disable the Lightweight Edge feature.

To disable the Lightweight Edge feature, execute the following command.

orientdb> ALTER DATABASE CUSTOM useLightweightEdges=FALSE