Bad performance with OR operator

Question

I'm trying to run a query over 582479 genes using the OR operator, after creating index on the properties: symbol, primaryidentifier, secondaryidentifier and name. This the query:

PROFILE 
MATCH(g:Gene) WHERE g.symbol="CG11566" OR 
                    g.primaryidentifier="CG11566" OR
                    g.secondaryidentifier="CG11566" OR 
                    g.name="CG11566" 
RETURN g.id, g.primaryidentifier, g.secondaryidentifier, g.symbol, g.name
ORDER BY g.id;

The performance is very poor, the indexes created are not used but only the label scan-> 2912399 total db hits in 3253 ms

Changed the query to use UNION:

PROFILE 
      MATCH(g:Gene) WHERE g.symbol='CG11566' return g.id 
UNION MATCH(g:Gene) WHERE g.primaryidentifier='CG11566' return g.id 
UNION MATCH(g:Gene) WHERE g.secondaryidentifier='CG11566' return g.id 
UNION MATCH(g:Gene) WHERE g.name='CG11566' return g.id;

indexes have been used -> 8 total db hits in 73 ms. Much better. Any better way to implement the query without using UNION?

Answer 1

There is not much else you can do right now, Cypher's planner would have to get cleverer

The UNION is imho the best solution right now.

Answer 2

neo4j 3.2 has introduced the use of indexes with the OR operator. Great!