apoc.import.graphml

Importing from local files requires setting apoc.import.file.enabled=true in apoc.conf. This is not supported on Aura. Aura instances are therefore limited to importing publicly hosted files.

Details
Syntax	`apoc.import.graphml(urlOrBinaryFile, config) :: (file, source, format, nodes, relationships, properties, time, rows, batchSize, batches, done, data)`
Description	Imports a graph from the provided GraphML file.
Input arguments	Name	Type	Description
	`urlOrBinaryFile`	`ANY`	The name of the file or binary data to import the data from.
	`config`	`MAP`	`{ readLabels = false :: BOOLEAN, defaultRelationshipType = "RELATED" :: STRING, storeNodeIds = false :: BOOLEAN, batchSize = 20000 :: INTEGER, compression = "NONE" :: ["NONE", "BYTES", "GZIP", "BZIP2", "DEFLATE", "BLOCK_LZ4", "FRAMED_SNAPPY"], source = {} :: MAP, target = {} :: MAP }`
Return arguments	Name	Type	Description
	`file`	`STRING`	The name of the file from which the data was imported.
	`source`	`STRING`	The source of the imported data: "file", "binary" or "file/binary".
	`format`	`STRING`	The format of the file: ["csv", "graphml", "json"].
	`nodes`	`INTEGER`	The number of imported nodes.
	`relationships`	`INTEGER`	The number of imported relationships.
	`properties`	`INTEGER`	The number of imported properties.
	`time`	`INTEGER`	The duration of the import.
	`rows`	`INTEGER`	The number of rows returned.
	`batchSize`	`INTEGER`	The size of the batches the import was run in.
	`batches`	`INTEGER`	The number of batches the import was run in.
	`done`	`BOOLEAN`	Whether the import ran successfully.
	`data`	`ANY`	The data returned by the import.

Config parameters

The procedure supports the following config parameters:

Config parameters
Name	Type	Default	Description
`readLabels`	`BOOLEAN`	false	Creates node labels based on the value in the `labels` property of `node` elements
`defaultRelationshipType`	`STRING`	RELATED	The default relationship type to use if none is specified in the GraphML file
`storeNodeIds`	`BOOLEAN`	false	Store the `id` property of `node` elements
`batchSize`	`INTEGER`	20000	The number of elements to process per transaction
`compression`	`Enum[NONE, BYTES, GZIP, BZIP2, DEFLATE, BLOCK_LZ4, FRAMED_SNAPPY]`	`null`	Allow taking binary data, either not compressed (value: `NONE`) or compressed (other values)
`source`	`MAP`<STRING,STRING>	Empty map	See below
`target`	`MAP`<STRING,STRING>	Empty map	See below

Source / target config

Allows the import of relations in case the source and / or target nodes are not present in the file, searching for nodes via a custom label and property. To do this, we can insert into the config map source: {label: '<MY_SOURCE_LABEL>', id: ’<MY_SOURCE_ID>'}` and/or source: {label: '<MY_TARGET_LABEL>', id: ’<MY_TARGET_ID>'}` In this way, we can search start and end nodes via the source and end attribute of edge tag.

For example, with a config map {source: {id: 'myId', label: 'Foo'}, target: {id: 'other', label: 'Bar'}} with a edge row like <edge id="e0" source="n0" target="n1" label="KNOWS"><data key="label">KNOWS</data></edge> we search a source node (:Foo {myId: 'n0'}) and an end node (:Bar {other: 'n1'}). The id key is optional (the default is 'id').

Output parameters

Name	Type
file	STRING
source	STRING
format	STRING
nodes	INTEGER
relationships	INTEGER
properties	INTEGER
time	INTEGER
rows	INTEGER
batchSize	INTEGER
batches	INTEGER
done	BOOLEAN
data	STRING

Name

Type

file

STRING

source

STRING

format

STRING

nodes

INTEGER

relationships

INTEGER

properties

INTEGER

time

INTEGER

rows

INTEGER

batchSize

INTEGER

batches

INTEGER

done

BOOLEAN

data

STRING

Reading from a file

By default importing from the file system is disabled. We can enable it by setting the following property in apoc.conf:

apoc.conf

apoc.import.file.enabled=true

If we try to use any of the import procedures without having first set this property, we’ll get the following error message:

Failed to invoke procedure: Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: Import from files not enabled, please set apoc.import.file.enabled=true in your apoc.conf

Import files are read from the import directory, which is defined by the server.directories.import property. This means that any file path that we provide is relative to this directory. If we try to read from an absolute path, such as /tmp/filename, we’ll get an error message similar to the following one:

Failed to invoke procedure: Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: Can’t read url or key file:/path/to/neo4j/import/tmp/filename as json: /path/to/neo4j//import/tmp/filename (No such file or directory)

We can enable reading files from anywhere on the file system by setting the following property in apoc.conf:

apoc.conf

apoc.import.file.use_neo4j_config=false

Neo4j will now be able to read from anywhere on the file system, so be sure that this is your intention before setting this property.

Usage Examples

Import simple GraphML file

The simple.graphml file contains a graph representation from the GraphML primer.

simple.graphml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<graphml xmlns="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns
     http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns/1.0/graphml.xsd">
  <graph id="G" edgedefault="undirected">
    <node id="n0"/>
    <node id="n1"/>
    <node id="n2"/>
    <node id="n3"/>
    <node id="n4"/>
    <node id="n5"/>
    <node id="n6"/>
    <node id="n7"/>
    <node id="n8"/>
    <node id="n9"/>
    <node id="n10"/>
    <edge source="n0" target="n2"/>
    <edge source="n1" target="n2"/>
    <edge source="n2" target="n3"/>
    <edge source="n3" target="n5"/>
    <edge source="n3" target="n4"/>
    <edge source="n4" target="n6"/>
    <edge source="n6" target="n5"/>
    <edge source="n5" target="n7"/>
    <edge source="n6" target="n8"/>
    <edge source="n8" target="n7"/>
    <edge source="n8" target="n9"/>
    <edge source="n8" target="n10"/>
  </graph>
</graphml>

The following imports a graph based on simple.graphml

CALL apoc.import.graphml("http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/primer/simple.graphml", {})

If we run this query, we’ll see the following output:

Results
file	source	format	nodes	relationships	properties	time	rows	batchSize	batches	done	data
"http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/primer/simple.graphml"	"file"	"graphml"	11	12	0	618	0	-1	0	TRUE	NULL

We could also copy simple.graphml into Neo4j’s import directory, and import the file from there.

We can then run the import procedure in the following way:

The following imports a graph based on simple.graphml

CALL apoc.import.graphml("file://simple.graphml", {})

The Neo4j Browser visualization below shows the imported graph:

Figure 1. Simple Graph Visualization

Import GraphML file created by Export GraphML procedures

movies.graphml contains a subset of Neo4j’s movies graph, and was generated by the Export GraphML procedure.

movies.graphml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<graphml xmlns="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns/1.0/graphml.xsd">
<key id="born" for="node" attr.name="born"/>
<key id="name" for="node" attr.name="name"/>
<key id="tagline" for="node" attr.name="tagline"/>
<key id="label" for="node" attr.name="label"/>
<key id="title" for="node" attr.name="title"/>
<key id="released" for="node" attr.name="released"/>
<key id="roles" for="edge" attr.name="roles"/>
<key id="label" for="edge" attr.name="label"/>
<graph id="G" edgedefault="directed">
<node id="n188" labels=":Movie"><data key="labels">:Movie</data><data key="title">The Matrix</data><data key="tagline">Welcome to the Real World</data><data key="released">1999</data></node>
<node id="n189" labels=":Person"><data key="labels">:Person</data><data key="born">1964</data><data key="name">Keanu Reeves</data></node>
<node id="n190" labels=":Person"><data key="labels">:Person</data><data key="born">1967</data><data key="name">Carrie-Anne Moss</data></node>
<node id="n191" labels=":Person"><data key="labels">:Person</data><data key="born">1961</data><data key="name">Laurence Fishburne</data></node>
<node id="n192" labels=":Person"><data key="labels">:Person</data><data key="born">1960</data><data key="name">Hugo Weaving</data></node>
<node id="n193" labels=":Person"><data key="labels">:Person</data><data key="born">1967</data><data key="name">Lilly Wachowski</data></node>
<node id="n194" labels=":Person"><data key="labels">:Person</data><data key="born">1965</data><data key="name">Lana Wachowski</data></node>
<node id="n195" labels=":Person"><data key="labels">:Person</data><data key="born">1952</data><data key="name">Joel Silver</data></node>
<edge id="e267" source="n189" target="n188" label="ACTED_IN"><data key="label">ACTED_IN</data><data key="roles">["Neo"]</data></edge>
<edge id="e268" source="n190" target="n188" label="ACTED_IN"><data key="label">ACTED_IN</data><data key="roles">["Trinity"]</data></edge>
<edge id="e269" source="n191" target="n188" label="ACTED_IN"><data key="label">ACTED_IN</data><data key="roles">["Morpheus"]</data></edge>
<edge id="e270" source="n192" target="n188" label="ACTED_IN"><data key="label">ACTED_IN</data><data key="roles">["Agent Smith"]</data></edge>
<edge id="e271" source="n193" target="n188" label="DIRECTED"><data key="label">DIRECTED</data></edge>
<edge id="e272" source="n194" target="n188" label="DIRECTED"><data key="label">DIRECTED</data></edge>
<edge id="e273" source="n195" target="n188" label="PRODUCED"><data key="label">PRODUCED</data></edge>
</graph>
</graphml>

The following imports a graph based on movies.graphml

CALL apoc.import.graphml("movies.graphml", {})

If we run this query, we’ll see the following output:

Results
file	source	format	nodes	relationships	properties	time	rows	batchSize	batches	done	data
"movies.graphml"	"file"	"graphml"	8	7	36	23	0	-1	0	TRUE	NULL

We can run the following query to see the imported graph:

MATCH p=()-->()
RETURN p

Results
p
({name: "Laurence Fishburne", born: "1961", labels: ":Person"})-[:ACTED_IN {roles: "[\"Morpheus\"]", label: "ACTED_IN"}]→({tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999", labels: ":Movie"})
({name: "Carrie-Anne Moss", born: "1967", labels: ":Person"})-[:ACTED_IN {roles: "[\"Trinity\"]", label: "ACTED_IN"}]→({tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999", la bels: ":Movie"})
({name: "Lana Wachowski", born: "1965", labels: ":Person"})-[:DIRECTED {label: "DIRECTED"}]→({tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999", labels: ":Movie"})
({name: "Joel Silver", born: "1952", labels: ":Person"})-[:PRODUCED {label: "PRODUCED"}]→({tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999", labels: ":Movie"})
({name: "Lilly Wachowski", born: "1967", labels: ":Person"})-[:DIRECTED {label: "DIRECTED"}]→({tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999", labels: ":Movie"})
({name: "Keanu Reeves", born: "1964", labels: ":Person"})-[:ACTED_IN {roles: "[\"Neo\"]", label: "ACTED_IN"}]→({tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999", labels: ": Movie"})
({name: "Hugo Weaving", born: "1960", labels: ":Person"})-[:ACTED_IN {roles: "[\"Agent Smith\"]", label: "ACTED_IN"}]→({tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999", la bels: ":Movie"})

The labels defined in the GraphML file have been added to the labels property on each node, rather than being added as a node label. We can set the config property readLabels: true to import native labels:

The following imports a graph based on movies.graphml and stores node labels

CALL apoc.import.graphml("movies.graphml", {readLabels: true})

Results
file	source	format	nodes	relationships	properties	time	rows	batchSize	batches	done	data
"movies.graphml"	"file"	"graphml"	8	7	21	23	0	-1	0	TRUE	NULL

And now let’s re-run the query to see the imported graph:

MATCH p=()-->()
RETURN;

Results
p
(:Person {name: "Lilly Wachowski", born: "1967"})-[:DIRECTED]→(:Movie {tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999"})
(:Person {name: "Carrie-Anne Moss", born: "1967"})-[:ACTED_IN {roles: "[\"Trinity\"]"}]→(:Movie {tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999"})
(:Person {name: "Hugo Weaving", born: "1960"})-[:ACTED_IN {roles: "[\"Agent Smith\"]"}]→(:Movie {tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999"})
(:Person {name: "Laurence Fishburne", born: "1961"})-[:ACTED_IN {roles: "[\"Morpheus\"]"}]→(:Movie {tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999"})
(:Person {name: "Keanu Reeves", born: "1964"})-[:ACTED_IN {roles: "[\"Neo\"]"}]→(:Movie {tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999"})
(:Person {name: "Joel Silver", born: "1952"})-[:PRODUCED]→(:Movie {tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999"})
(:Person {name: "Lana Wachowski", born: "1965"})-[:DIRECTED]→(:Movie {tagline: "Welcome to the Real World", title: "The Matrix", released: "1999"})

Binary file

You can also import a file from a binary byte[] (not compressed) or a compressed file (allowed compression algos are: GZIP, BZIP2, DEFLATE, BLOCK_LZ4, FRAMED_SNAPPY).

CALL apoc.import.graphml(`binaryGzipByteArray`,  {compression: 'GZIP'})

or:

CALL apoc.import.graphml(`binaryFileNotCompressed`,  {compression: 'NONE'})

For example, this one works well with apoc.util.compress function:

WITH apoc.util.compress('<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<graphml xmlns="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns/1.0/graphml.xsd">
<graph id="G" edgedefault="directed">
<node id="n0"> <data key="labels">:FOO</data><data key="name">foo</data> </node>
<node id="n1"> <data key="labels">:BAR</data><data key="name">bar</data> <data key="kids">[a,b,c]</data> </node>
<edge id="e0" source="n0" target="n1"> <data key="label">:EDGE_LABEL</data> <data key="name">foo</data> </edge>
</graph>
</graphml>', {compression: 'DEFLATE'}) as xmlCompressed
CALL apoc.import.graphml(xmlCompressed,  {compression: 'DEFLATE'})
YIELD source, format, nodes, relationships, properties
RETURN source, format, nodes, relationships, properties

Results
source	format	nodes	relationships	properties
"binary"	"graphml"	2	1	7

Round trip separated GraphML files

With this dataset:

CREATE (f:Foo:Foo2:Foo0 {name:'foo', born:Date('2018-10-10'), place:point({ longitude: 56.7, latitude: 12.78, height: 100 })})-[:KNOWS]->(b:Bar {name:'bar',age:42, place:point({ longitude: 56.7, latitude: 12.78})});
CREATE (:Foo {name: 'zzz'})-[:KNOWS]->(:Bar {age: 0});
CREATE (:Foo {name: 'aaa'})-[:KNOWS {id: 1}]->(:Bar {age: 666});

we can execute these 3 export queries:

// Foo nodes
call apoc.export.graphml.query('MATCH (start:Foo)-[:KNOWS]->(:Bar) RETURN start', 'queryNodesFoo.graphml', {useTypes: true});

// Bar nodes
call apoc.export.graphml.query('MATCH (:Foo)-[:KNOWS]->(end:Bar) RETURN end', 'queryNodesBar.graphml', {useTypes: true});

// KNOWS rels
MATCH (:Foo)-[rel:KNOWS]->(:Bar)
WITH collect(rel) as rels
call apoc.export.graphml.data([], rels, 'queryRelationship.graphml', {useTypes: true})
YIELD nodes, relationships RETURN nodes, relationships;

In this case we will have these 3 files: .queryNodesFoo.graphml

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<graphml xmlns="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns/1.0/graphml.xsd">
<key id="born" for="node" attr.name="born" attr.type="string"/>
<key id="name" for="node" attr.name="name" attr.type="string"/>
<key id="place" for="node" attr.name="place" attr.type="string"/>
<key id="labels" for="node" attr.name="labels" attr.type="string"/>
<graph id="G" edgedefault="directed">
<node id="n0" labels=":Foo:Foo0:Foo2"><data key="labels">:Foo:Foo0:Foo2</data><data key="born">2018-10-10</data><data key="name">foo</data><data key="place">{"crs":"wgs-84-3d","latitude":12.78,"longitude":56.7,"height":100.0}</data></node>
<node id="n3" labels=":Foo"><data key="labels">:Foo</data><data key="name">zzz</data></node>
<node id="n5" labels=":Foo"><data key="labels">:Foo</data><data key="name">aaa</data></node>
</graph>
</graphml>

queryNodesBar.graphml

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<graphml xmlns="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns/1.0/graphml.xsd">
<key id="name" for="node" attr.name="name" attr.type="string"/>
<key id="place" for="node" attr.name="place" attr.type="string"/>
<key id="age" for="node" attr.name="age" attr.type="long"/>
<key id="labels" for="node" attr.name="labels" attr.type="string"/>
<graph id="G" edgedefault="directed">
<node id="n1" labels=":Bar"><data key="labels">:Bar</data><data key="name">bar</data><data key="age">42</data><data key="place">{"crs":"wgs-84","latitude":12.78,"longitude":56.7,"height":null}</data></node>
<node id="n4" labels=":Bar"><data key="labels">:Bar</data><data key="age">0</data></node>
<node id="n6" labels=":Bar"><data key="labels">:Bar</data><data key="age">666</data></node>
</graph>
</graphml>

queryRelationship.graphml

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<graphml xmlns="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns/1.0/graphml.xsd">
<key id="label" for="edge" attr.name="label" attr.type="string"/>
<key id="id" for="edge" attr.name="id" attr.type="long"/>
<graph id="G" edgedefault="directed">
<edge id="e0" source="n0" target="n1" label="KNOWS"><data key="label">KNOWS</data></edge>
<edge id="e1" source="n3" target="n4" label="KNOWS"><data key="label">KNOWS</data></edge>
<edge id="e2" source="n5" target="n6" label="KNOWS"><data key="label">KNOWS</data><data key="id">1</data></edge>
</graph>
</graphml>

So we can import, in another db, in this way, to recreate the original dataset, using these queries:

CALL apoc.import.graphml('queryNodesFoo.graphml', {readLabels: true, storeNodeIds: true});
CALL apoc.import.graphml('queryNodesBar.graphml', {readLabels: true, storeNodeIds: true});
CALL apoc.import.graphml('queryRelationship.graphml', {readLabels: true, source: {label: 'Foo'}, target: {label: 'Bar'}});

Note that we have to execute the import of nodes before, and we used the useTypes: true to import the attribute id of node tags as a property and readLabels to populate nodes with labels.

With custom property key

Otherwise, we can leverage a custom property and avoid importing the id attribute (via useTypes:true) in this way (same dataset and nodes export query as before):

// KNOWS rels
MATCH (:Foo)-[rel:KNOWS]->(:Bar)
WITH collect(rel) as rels
call apoc.export.graphml.data([], rels, 'queryRelationship.graphml',
  {useTypes: true, source: {id: 'name'}, label: {id: 'age'}})
YIELD nodes, relationships RETURN nodes, relationships;

Is strongly recommended using an unique constraint to ensure uniqueness, so in this case for label Foo and property name and for label Bar and property age

The above query generate this rel file:

queryRelationship.graphml

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<graphml xmlns="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns/1.0/graphml.xsd">
<key id="label" for="edge" attr.name="label" attr.type="string"/>
<key id="id" for="edge" attr.name="id" attr.type="long"/>
<graph id="G" edgedefault="directed">
<edge id="e0" source="foo" sourceType="string" target="42" targetType="long" label="KNOWS"><data key="label">KNOWS</data></edge>
<edge id="e1" source="zzz" sourceType="string" target="0" targetType="long" label="KNOWS"><data key="label">KNOWS</data></edge>
<edge id="e2" source="aaa" sourceType="string" target="666" targetType="long" label="KNOWS"><data key="label">KNOWS</data><data key="id">1</data></edge>
</graph>
</graphml>

Finally, we can import the files using the same id (name and age) as above:

CALL apoc.import.graphml('queryNodesFoo.graphml', {readLabels: true});
CALL apoc.import.graphml('queryNodesBar.graphml', {readLabels: true});
CALL apoc.import.graphml('queryRelationship.graphml',
  {readLabels: true, source: {label: 'Foo', id: 'name'}, target: {label: 'Bar', id: 'age'}});