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gremlinamazon-neptunetinkerpop3

Tinkerpop Gremlin is it better to query with hasId or to search by property values

Using Tinkerpop Gremlin (Neptune DB), is there a preferred/"faster" way to query?

For example, let's say I have a graph containing the node:

label: Student
id: 'student/12345'
studentId: '12345'
name: 'Bob'

Is there a preferred query? (for this example let's say we know the field 'studentId' value, which is also part of the id)

g.V().filter('studentId', '12345')

vs

g.V().filter(hasId(TextP.containing('12345'))

or using "has"/"hasId" vs "filter"?

g.V().has('studentId', '12345')

vs

g.V().hasId(TextP.containing('12345'))
Solution

  • So there seems to be two questions here, one about filter() vs has() and the other about using the vertex id versus a property.

    The answer to the first question is going to depend on the underlying database implementation and what is has/has not optimized. In general, and in Neptune, I would suggest using the g.V().has('studentId', '12345') pattern to filter on a property as it is optimized and easier to read.

    The answer to the second question also depends on the database implementaiton, as not all allow for setting of the vertex ids. Other databases may vary but in Neptune setting ids is allowed and a direct lookup by ID is the fastest (e.g. g.V('12345') or g.V().hasId('12345')) way to look something up as it is a single index lookup. One thing to note is that in Neptune vertex/edge id values need to be globally unique so you need to ensure that you will only have one vertex or edge with a specific id.