What are the neo4j naming conventions?

Question

I'm curious about naming conventions in neo4j.

I noticed in their examples that relationship names where capitalized, e.g.

left-[r:KNOWS]->right

Is that the convention? Is neo4j case sensitive in relationship names? Are there other naming conventions around index names and property names?

Answer 1

That is the convention. I personally use lower case relationship types, and yes, it is case-sensitive. With underscores.

Usually, people use underscores for index names as well, and they're usually lower case, and also case-sensitive.

Also, something to remember: if you don't specify direction while creating, the default is left<--right. Not intuitive for me, but now I just specify direction always.

For the properties, I think most people use JSON style conventions: http://google-styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/jsoncstyleguide.xml#Key_Names_in_JSON_Maps

I've also seen underscores for properties, so I guess it goes either way. Just be consistent!

Answer 2

Yes, the convention for relationship names is to have them ALL_UPPERCASE. All names in Neo4j are case-sensitive (labels, relationships, properties, ...)

Keep in mind that this is a convention, not a requirement. The most important part in any project is consistency. Use a coding style and stick to it throughout!

Neo4j naming convention:

• Labels: UpperCamelCase (a.k.a. PascalCase)
• Relationships: CAPITALIZED_WITH_UNDERSCORE
• Property key names: lowerCamelCase or snake_case

Cypher examples:

CREATE (:Person {name:"Anne"})-[:MANAGES {start_date:20121112}]->(:WorkGroup {name:"Dev"});

Alternatively:

CREATE (:Person {name:"Anne"})-[:MANAGES {startDate:20121112}]->(:WorkGroup {name:"Dev"});

References:

• The Neo4j Developer Manual
• The O'Reilly Graph Databases - Neo4j Graph Database