How to use Neo4J native types with SDN and OGM

[p_suettner]

Hi,

I wonder how to setup SDN with OGM to use native types instead of converting e.g. temporal fields to string properties.

Currently I'm using Spring Boot version 2.1.0.RELEASE and org.springframework.data:spring-data-neo4j:5.1.2.RELEASE, which declares a dependency to org.neo4j:neo4j-ogm-bolt-driver:3.1.4

The SDN documentation does not mention using native types at all. However, the OGM documentation (https://neo4j.com/docs/ogm-manual/current/reference/#reference:native-property-types) states declaring a dependency to org.neo4j:neo4j-ogm-bolt-native-types:x.x.x and configuring the driver to use native types.

But searching maven central, there are no corresponding versions available, see:
https://search.maven.org/search?q=a:neo4j-ogm-bolt-native-types

In the end, I would like to be able to execute queries using the org.neo4j.ogm.session.Session with parameter binding, e.g.

ImmutableMap<String, Object> parameterMap = ImmutableMap.<String, Object>of("creationTimeParam", Instant.now());
session.query(Product.class, "MATCH (p:Product) WHERE p.creationTime < {creationTimeParam} RETURN p",parameterMap);

where creationTime is defined as Instant in the Product class. But this kind of query with parameter bindings won't work without native type support I guess...

Is this currently not supported or am I missing something?

Greetings,

Peter

[michael_simons]

Hi Peter.
Thanks for your question.

Currently, the Neo4j-OGM documentation points to Version 3.2 which has not been released yet. This is an error on our site.

Regarding the parameter binding: This is also a current bug in Neo4j-OGM on our site. Neo4j-OGM uses Jacksons ObjectMapper to convert parameters and that one doesn't know how do deal with JDK 8 types out of the box.

I solved this in my demo projects in the following way at the moment:

First of all: Fix the ObjectMapper. This will be done in 3.2 automatically:

github.com

michael-simons/bootiful-music/blob/38d64c272320abecc4f50c65f5060fc2303b20c4/knowledge/src/main/java/...

		var objectMapper = ObjectMapperFactory.objectMapper();


		objectMapper.registerModule(new JavaTimeModule());
		objectMapper.configure(SerializationFeature.WRITE_DATES_AS_TIMESTAMPS, false);

To make this work, please add https://github.com/FasterXML/jackson-modules-java8 to your classpath.
It should be automatically available with your Spring Boot 2.1.x setup anyway.

Second step, tell Neo4j-OGM to keep away from data types it can actually pass along to embedded and Bolt instances:

github.com

michael-simons/bootiful-music/blob/38d64c272320abecc4f50c65f5060fc2303b20c4/knowledge/src/main/java/...

* @author Michael J. Simons
*/
@Configuration
public class Neo4jConfiguration {
	@Bean
	public org.neo4j.ogm.config.Configuration configuration(Neo4jProperties properties) {
		var builder = new org.neo4j.ogm.config.Configuration.Builder();
		builder.uri(Optional.ofNullable(properties.getUri()).orElse("bolt://localhost:7687"));
		builder.credentials(properties.getUsername(), properties.getPassword());
		builder.autoIndex(properties.getAutoIndex().getName());
		builder.withCustomProperty(CONFIG_PARAMETER_CONVERSION_MODE, CONVERT_NON_NATIVE_ONLY);


		return builder.build();
	}


	@PostConstruct
	void configureOGMObjectMapper() {


		var objectMapper = ObjectMapperFactory.objectMapper();


		objectMapper.registerModule(new JavaTimeModule());

ParameterConversionMode is an undocumented feature for the most recent Neo4j-OGM version 3.1.6 that allows such a thing.

And last but not least, fix all the conversion mappings by providing No-Op converters that Spring Data Neo4j should keep alone:

github.com

michael-simons/bootiful-music/blob/38d64c272320abecc4f50c65f5060fc2303b20c4/knowledge/src/main/java/...

/*
 * Copyright 2018 the original author or authors.
 *
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */
package ac.simons.music.knowledge.support;

import java.time.LocalDate;
import java.time.LocalDateTime;

This file has been truncated. show original

Use it like this:

github.com

michael-simons/bootiful-music/blob/38d64c272320abecc4f50c65f5060fc2303b20c4/knowledge/src/main/java/...

*
* @author Michael J. Simons
*/
@Getter
public abstract class AbstractAuditableBaseEntity {
	@Id
	@GeneratedValue
	private Long id;


	@CreatedDate
	@Convert(NoOpLocalDateTimeConversion.class)
	private LocalDateTime createdAt;


	@LastModifiedDate
	@Convert(NoOpLocalDateTimeConversion.class)
	private LocalDateTime updatedAt;
}

I'm really sorry for that hassle, but this is the only solution.

Things will improve greatly with Spring Data Neo4j Moore (5.2) and Neo4j-OGM (3.2) which will be released with Spring Boot 2.2.
Opt-in to native types will be a simple property you'll set in your Spring Config.

Best,
Michael.

[p_suettner]

Hi Michael,

thanks for your detailed answer. Currently all timestamps are stored in UTC anyways, so I' m fine with keeping the long values for the time being. But I'll give your solution a try...

Greetings,

Peter