Neo4j

Neo4j is an open-source NoSQL graph database that uses a rich data model of nodes connected by first class relationships, which is better suited for connected big data than traditional RDBMS approaches. Spring Boot offers several conveniences for working with Neo4j, including the spring-boot-starter-data-neo4j “Starter”.

Connecting to a Neo4j Database

To access a Neo4j server, you can inject an auto-configured org.neo4j.driver.Driver. By default, the instance tries to connect to a Neo4j server at localhost:7687 using the Bolt protocol. The following example shows how to inject a Neo4j Driver that gives you access, amongst other things, to a Session:

Java
Kotlin

import org.neo4j.driver.Driver;
import org.neo4j.driver.Session;
import org.neo4j.driver.Values;

import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;

@Component
public class MyBean {

	private final Driver driver;

	public MyBean(Driver driver) {
		this.driver = driver;
	}

	// ...

	public String someMethod(String message) {
		try (Session session = this.driver.session()) {
			return session.executeWrite(
					(transaction) -> transaction
						.run("CREATE (a:Greeting) SET a.message = $message RETURN a.message + ', from node ' + id(a)",
								Values.parameters("message", message))
						.single()
						.get(0)
						.asString());
		}
	}

}

import org.neo4j.driver.*
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component

@Component
class MyBean(private val driver: Driver) {
	// ...
	fun someMethod(message: String?): String {
		driver.session().use { session ->
			return@someMethod session.executeWrite { transaction: TransactionContext ->
				transaction
					.run(
						"CREATE (a:Greeting) SET a.message = \$message RETURN a.message + ', from node ' + id(a)",
						Values.parameters("message", message)
					)
					.single()[0].asString()
			}
		}
	}
}

You can configure various aspects of the driver using spring.neo4j.* properties. The following example shows how to configure the uri and credentials to use:

Properties
YAML

spring.neo4j.uri=bolt://my-server:7687
spring.neo4j.authentication.username=neo4j
spring.neo4j.authentication.password=secret

spring:
  neo4j:
    uri: "bolt://my-server:7687"
    authentication:
      username: "neo4j"
      password: "secret"

The auto-configured Driver is created using ConfigBuilder. To fine-tune its configuration, declare one or more ConfigBuilderCustomizer beans. Each will be called in order with the ConfigBuilder that is used to build the Driver.

Spring Data Neo4j Repositories

Spring Data includes repository support for Neo4j. For complete details of Spring Data Neo4j, see the reference documentation.

Spring Data Neo4j shares the common infrastructure with Spring Data JPA as many other Spring Data modules do. You could take the JPA example from earlier and define City as Spring Data Neo4j @Node rather than JPA @Entity and the repository abstraction works in the same way, as shown in the following example:

Java
Kotlin

import java.util.Optional;

import org.springframework.data.neo4j.repository.Neo4jRepository;

public interface CityRepository extends Neo4jRepository<City, Long> {

	Optional<City> findOneByNameAndState(String name, String state);

}

import org.springframework.data.neo4j.repository.Neo4jRepository
import java.util.Optional

interface CityRepository : Neo4jRepository<City?, Long?> {

	fun findOneByNameAndState(name: String?, state: String?): Optional<City?>?

}

The spring-boot-starter-data-neo4j “Starter” enables the repository support as well as transaction management. Spring Boot supports both classic and reactive Neo4j repositories, using the Neo4jTemplate or ReactiveNeo4jTemplate beans. When Project Reactor is available on the classpath, the reactive style is also auto-configured.

You can customize the locations to look for repositories and entities by using @EnableNeo4jRepositories and @EntityScan respectively on a @Configuration-bean.

In an application using the reactive style, a ReactiveTransactionManager is not auto-configured. To enable transaction management, the following bean must be defined in your configuration:

Java
Kotlin

import org.neo4j.driver.Driver;

import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.data.neo4j.core.ReactiveDatabaseSelectionProvider;
import org.springframework.data.neo4j.core.transaction.ReactiveNeo4jTransactionManager;

@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
public class MyNeo4jConfiguration {

	@Bean
	public ReactiveNeo4jTransactionManager reactiveTransactionManager(Driver driver,
			ReactiveDatabaseSelectionProvider databaseNameProvider) {
		return new ReactiveNeo4jTransactionManager(driver, databaseNameProvider);
	}

}

import org.neo4j.driver.Driver
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration
import org.springframework.data.neo4j.core.ReactiveDatabaseSelectionProvider
import org.springframework.data.neo4j.core.transaction.ReactiveNeo4jTransactionManager

@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
class MyNeo4jConfiguration {

	@Bean
	fun reactiveTransactionManager(driver: Driver,
			databaseNameProvider: ReactiveDatabaseSelectionProvider): ReactiveNeo4jTransactionManager {
		return ReactiveNeo4jTransactionManager(driver, databaseNameProvider)
	}
}