Neo4jClient datetime property - How to find all nodes between dates with Cypher

Question

I have just started using Neo4jClient and Cypher and surprisingly I don't find any example on the net that's using the DateTime filed in the the cypher query where clause .

when I an trying to get some nodes filtered on a DateTime property, the query is not returning any results, here is an example of what I was trying:

Say I am looking for all make employees in HR deportment whose Date of birth is within a time range. the query I am trying to build is as shown below.

client.Cypher
    .Start(new { company = companyNode.Reference})
    .Match("(department)<-[:BELONGS_TO]-(employee)-[:BELONGS_TO]->(company)")
    .Where<Department>(department=>department.Name=='Human Resource')
    .AndWhere<Employee>(employee=> employee.DOB >= searchStart && employee.DOB<= searchEnd)
    .ReturnDistinct((employee)=> new {name = employee.Name});

here Employee->DOB/searchStart/searchEnd are all DateTimeOffset fields and the data stored in the graph via the neo4jclient is represented as "1990-09-28T19:02:21.7576376+05:30"

when i am debugging the code I see that Neo4jClient is actually representing the query as something like this

AND ((employee.DOB >=10/3/1988 8:16:41 PM +03:00) AND (employee.DOB <=10/3/2003 8:16:41 PM +03:00))

when I get rid of the DOB where clause i do get results.

I would really appreciate if someone can point me to how the DateTimeOffset property can be used in the queries.

Regards, Kiran

Answer 1

Using the DateTimeOffset works fine for me:

private static IList<Node<DateOffsetNode>> Between(IGraphClient client, DateTimeOffset from, DateTimeOffset to)
{
    ICypherFluentQuery<Node<DateOffsetNode>> query = new CypherFluentQuery(client)
        .Start(new { n = All.Nodes })
        .Where((DateOffsetNode n) => n.Date <= to && n.Date >= from)
        .Return<Node<DateOffsetNode>>("n");

    return query.Results.ToList();
}

Where DateOffsetNode is just:

public class DateOffsetNode { public DateTimeOffset Date { get;set; } }

But another way is to store the ticks value and compare with that instead:

.Where((DateObj o) => o.Ticks < DateTime.Now.Date.Ticks)

I typically define DateObj like:

public class DateObj {
    public long Ticks { get;set; }
    public int Year { get;set; }
    public int Month { get;set;}
    public int Day { get;set;}

    public DateObj(){}
    public DateObj(DateTime dt){
        Ticks = dt.Date.Ticks;
        Year = dt.Date.Year;
        Month = dt.Date.Month;
        Day = dt.Date.Day;
    }
}

So I can also do things like:

.Where((DateObj o) => o.Year == 2013)

The equivalent for a time is to use something like the TotalMilliseconds property on the DateTime object as well:

.Where((TimeObj o) => o.TimeMs < DateTime.Now.TimeOfDay.TotalMilliseconds)