The APOC library is one of our Neo4j Labs projects.
To learn more, visit the APOC Labs page.
Goals
Through this guide, you will learn about one of Neo4j’s extension libraries - APOC.
You will understand why the library was created and how to use it to extend the functionality of the database and Cypher for use in applications, querying, loading/exporting data, and nearly any other functionality you could imagine.
Prerequisites
You should be familiar with the Neo4j graph database and what Cypher is.
This tool is used mostly through the Neo4j Desktop application and through the Neo4j Browser, so you should also know how to use the basic functionality of Neo4j Desktop and Neo4j Browser.
APOC stands for Awesome Procedures on Cypher.
Before APOC’s release, developers needed to write their own procedures and functions for common functionality that Cypher or the Neo4j database had not yet implemented for support.
Each developer might write his own version of these functions, causing a lot of duplication.
So, one of our Neo4j developers created the APOC library as a standard utility library for common procedures and functions.
This allowed developers across platforms and industries to use a standard library for common procedures and only write their own functionality for business logic and use-case-specific needs.
The APOC library is believed to be the largest and most-widely used extension library for Neo4j.
It includes over 450 standard procedures, providing functionality for utilities, conversions, graph updates, and more.
They are well-supported and are very easy to run as separate functions or to include in Cypher queries.
Before you begin to write adhoc functions for your application, be sure check APOC first to see if it exists there!
