Neo4j Cypher Query "NOT IN" doesnt work, "IN" works

Question

I try to create a cypher-query in my Java-Spring-Application which should answer the question "give all employees who did not create a item in item.nameList":

@Query("START it=node:__types__(className = 'de.my.domain.ItemCl') MATCH empl-[r:CREATE]->it WHERE (it.name NOT IN ({0})) RETURN DISTINCT empl")
List<Employee> findAllEmployeesWhoNeverCreatedItemFromItemNameList(List<String> itemNameList);

This query gives an "org.springframework.dao.InvalidDataAccessResourceUsageException" and marks the "NOT" as failure.

If I try the same query without NOT ("give all employees who did create a item in item.nameList", the query does what it should.

In this thread Peter Neubauer told that this "NOT IN" exists in cypher: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/neo4j/_PehVUfGaIA

Any idea what is wrong?

Answer 1

NOT is a negation, so you have to do it like this:

WHERE NOT(it.name IN({0}))