This is an extension to my previous post on how to convert an xml format data to a neo4j graph. For instance, see the graph generated an xml file in the following format

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<catalog>
<book id="bk101">
<author>Gambardella, Matthew</author>
<title>XML Developer's Guide</title>
<genre>Computer</genre>
<price>44.95</price>
<publish_date>2000-10-01</publish_date>
<description>An in-depth look at creating applications
with XML.</description>
</book>
.
.
.
</catalog>

And the neo4j graph visualization below..

There are 4 <book> nodes under <catlog> and for each book, the associated metadata. Altogether it’s a pretty standard xml.

Most of our xml operations involve traversing the xml. JAXP is bread and butter for any developer working with xml in Java. I have done my bit of xml parsing and the interface provided is so wonderful (and resource intensive because of the DOM).

Similar flexibility is possible for the xmlGraph too..

I have tried to implemented the following methods..

• getTags – Fetches the element objects for the specified xml tag
• getParent – Fetches the parent element object
• getChildren – Fetches the child element object
• getSiblings – Fetches the siblings of the element

The implementation of the methods are in a separate service Facade..

public interface XmlTreeService {
  public List<XmlElement> getTags(String tagName);
  public List<XmlElement> getChildren(XmlElement parent);
  public XmlElement getParent(XmlElement child);
  public List<XmlElement> getSiblings(XmlElement element);
}

Implementation Details

Fetching the list of Tags, (the getTags method)

The best solution was to use the GlobalGraphOperations interface. As discussed before, while saving the xml as a graph, each node has it’s tag name as a label. For instance, the node representing a book node will have the label, ‘book‘ associated with it.

It can be seen the TAG property ‘book‘ is also a label.

This means fetching all Tags of a specified name resolves to fetching all nodes with a specific label, which is easy using GlobalGraphOperations

GlobalGraphOperations globalGraph = getGlobalGraphOperations();
Label label = DynamicLabel.label(tagName);
ResourceIterable<Node> nodes;
try (Transaction tx = graphDb.beginTx()) {
 nodes = globalGraph.getAllNodesWithLabel(label);
 for (Node node : nodes) {
   XmlElement element = getXmlElement(node);
   elements.add(element);
}
 tx.success();
} catch (IOException e) {
 LOGGER.severe(e.getMessage());
 e.printStackTrace();
}

Fetching the parent and children

In the graph we created, between a child tag and the parent tag in the xml, there exists a relationship, CHILD_OF from the child to the parent

Implies finding the lineage is about finding the relationship of the node and fetching the element. For instance, see how the children nodes are fetched,

public List getChildren(XmlElement parent) {
 GraphDatabaseService graphDb = Neo4jDatabaseHandler.getGraphDatabase();
 List childElementList = new ArrayList<>();
 try(Transaction tx = graphDb.beginTx()) {
  Node node = graphDb.getNodeById(parent.getId());
  Iterable childRelations = node.getRelationships(Direction.INCOMING);
  Iterator relationshipIterator = childRelations.iterator();
  while(relationshipIterator.hasNext()) {
    Relationship relationship = relationshipIterator.next();
    Node childNode = relationship.getStartNode();
    XmlElement childElement = getXmlElement(childNode);
    childElementList.add(childElement);
  }
} catch (IOException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
 e.printStackTrace();
}

The process can be outlined as

1. Fetch the node from GraphDatabaseService using the id which is stored in the XmlElement Object.
2. Fetch the outgoing relationships which are INCOMING to the parent node.
3. Iterate through the relationships and fetch the starting nodes.

The same method can be used to identify the parent node too..

Fetching Sibling Nodes

To fetch the sibling nodes, first fetch the parent node and then get the children. Also remove the node in question. Finding siblings is quite elementary.

You can always find the complete source code in github.

Summary

To roll all balls at once, let’s try to do a small test,

GraphDatabaseService graphDb = Neo4jDatabaseHandler.getGraphDatabase();
XmlTreeServiceGraph treeServiceGraph = new XmlTreeServiceGraph(graphDb);
System.out.println("-----Test for DOM like methods on XmlGraph----\n");
List<XmlElement> groupElements = treeServiceGraph.getTags("book");
System.out.println("Fetching all Book Nodes...");
for (XmlElement xmlElement : groupElements) {
  System.out.println(xmlElement.getAtrributeString());
}
XmlElement firstElement = groupElements.get(0);
System.out.println("\nFetching children of the first Book Node : " + firstElement.getAtrributeString() + "...");
List<XmlElement> childrenElements = treeServiceGraph.getChildren(firstElement);
for (XmlElement xmlElement : childrenElements) {
  System.out.println(xmlElement.getTagName()+ " : " + xmlElement.getTagValue());
}
XmlElement child = childrenElements.get(0);
System.out.println("\nFetching parent of the first child element : "+child.getTagName()+" : "+child.getTagValue() + "...");
XmlElement parentElement = treeServiceGraph.getParent(child);
System.out.println(parentElement.getTagName() + " : " + parentElement.getAtrributeString());
System.out.println("\nFetching siblings of the first Book Node : " + firstElement.getAttributes());
List<XmlElement> elementSibling = treeServiceGraph.getSiblings(firstElement);
for (XmlElement xmlElement : elementSibling) {
  System.out.println(xmlElement.getTagName() + " : " + xmlElement.getAtrributeString());
}

P.S : I know the test code is crappy, but for a demo test, this will do.. 🙂

So, it’s quite straightforward, I am doing the following steps

1. Fetch all ‘book’ nodes in the xml, and print them
2. Fetch all the children of the first ‘book’ node, and print them
3. Fetch the parent of the first child from step #2, which should give us our first book node, and print them
4. Fetch the siblings of the first node, and print them

Let’s see how the output looks like,

-----Test for DOM like methods on XmlGraph----

Fetching all Book Nodes...
{"id":"bk101"}
{"id":"bk102"}
{"id":"bk103"}
{"id":"bk104"}

Fetching children of the first Book Node : {"id":"bk101"}...
description : An in-depth look at creating applications with XML.
publish_date : 2000-10-01
price : 44.95
genre : Computer
title : XML Developer's Guide
author : Gambardella, Matthew

Fetching parent of the first child element : description : An in-depth look at creating applications with XML....
book : {"id":"bk101"}

Fetching siblings of the first Book Node : {id=bk101}
book : {"id":"bk104"}
book : {"id":"bk103"}
book : {"id":"bk102"}

It looks good, and everything as expected… 🙂