How do I produce output even when there is no edge and when using select for projection

user_3119141 0
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Can someone help me please with this simple query...Many thanks in advance...

I am using the following gremlin query and it works well giving me the original vertex (v) (with id-=12345), its edges (e) and the child vertex (id property). However, say if the original vertex 'v' (with id-12345) has no outgoing edges, the query returns nothing. I still want the properties of the original vertex ('v') even if it has no outgoing edges and a child. How can I do that?

g.V().has('id', '12345').as('v').
  outE().as('e').
  inV().
    as('child_v').
    select('v', 'e', 'child_v').
    by(valueMap()).by(id).by(id)
tinkerpop gremlin azure-cosmosdb-gremlinapi
2 Answers

There are a couple of things going on here but the major update you need to the traversal is to use a project() step instead of a select().

select() and project() steps are similar in that they both allow you to format the results of a traversal however they differ in (at least) one significant way. select() steps function by allowing you to access previously traversed and labeled elements (via as). project() steps allow you take the current traverser and branch it to manipulate the output moving forward.

In your original traversal, when there are no outgoing edges from original v so all the traversers are filtered out during the outE() step. Since there are no further traversers after the outE() step then remainder of the traversal has no input stream so there is no data to return. If you use a project() step after the original v you're able to return the original traverser as well as return the edges and incident vertex. This does lead to a slight complication when handling cases where no out edges exist. Gremlin does not handle null values, such as no out edges existing, you need to return some constant value for these statements using a coalesce statement.

Here is functioning version of this traversal:

g.V().hasId(3).
  project('v', 'e', 'child_v').
    by(valueMap()).
    by(coalesce(outE().id(), constant(''))).
    by(coalesce(out().id(), constant('')))
user_303830

Currently you will get a lot of duplicate data, in the above query you will get the vertex properties E times. probably will be better to use project:

g.V('12345').project('v', 'children').
    by(valueMap()).
    by(outE().as('e').
      inV().as('child').
        select('e', 'child').by(id).fold())

example: https://gremlify.com/a1

You can get the original data format if you do something like this:

g.V('12345').as('v').
  coalesce(
    outE().as('e').
    inV().
      as('child_v')
    select('v', 'e', 'child_v').
    by(valueMap()).by(id).by(id),
    project('v').by(valueMap())
  )

example: https://gremlify.com/a2

user_59902480
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