RedisGraph, the graph database model for Redis, has been updated. The new edition supports full-text searching, full-graph response to queries, and enhancements to the Cypher query language.

RedisGraph takes a different approach to other graph databases, translating the Cypher query language to matrix operations executed over a GraphBLAS-based engine. By using sparse matrices to represent graphs and GraphBLAS to process them, RedisGraph to manages and processes graph data faster than other graph databases, according to the developers.

RedisGraph is based on the property graph model, and its nodes and relationships (vertices and edges) can have attributes, and nodes can be labeled. It uses Cypher as its query language, and Cypher queries are translated into linear algebra expressions. Cypher is a declarative, SQL-inspired language for describing patterns in graphs visually using an ascii-art syntax.

New in this release is support for full-text search on property values. A low-level API was added in Redis 1.6 that supports the use of RediSearch for secondary indexing and full-text search purposes, and this has now been fully incorporated across all modules. Until now, RedisGraph index searching was limited to exact matches and did not allow for prefix or fuzzy matching. There was also no way to use two separate indexes on a given label as compound indexes.

The improvement extends to the ability to combine the nodes returned with a match expression to further qualify the search results, known as graph-aided search. The developers say one example of graph-aided search is finding someone who is connected to an individual by a certain number of degrees of separation. A common example of this is the search functionality in LinkedIn, where people who are more closely connected to you are listed towards the top of the search matches.

Full-graph response has also been added to the new version, meaning queries can return nodes and relations directly. Previous releases returned a tabular result of properties values, but RedisGraph 2.0 can now return nodes, relations, and other data types. The developers say this will make it possible to carry out Object Graph Mapping (OGM), querying subgraphs, and visualizations where the receiving application needs all the nodes and their relationships.

Cypher has also been improved in this release, with extra operators and functions, support for simple case statements, enhanced merge support, counting of aggregates, support for naming paths, and reusing entities in pattern matching.

More Information

RedisGraph Website

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