org.neo4j.graphdb.Traverser Maven / Gradle / Ivy
/**
* Copyright (c) 2002-2013 "Neo Technology,"
* Network Engine for Objects in Lund AB [http://neotechnology.com]
*
* This file is part of Neo4j.
*
* Neo4j is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
* it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
* the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
* (at your option) any later version.
*
* This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
* but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
* MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
* GNU General Public License for more details.
*
* You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
* along with this program. If not, see
* When a Traverser is created it is parameterized with two evaluators and the
* relationship types to traverse, with the direction to traverse each type in.
* The evaluators are used for determining for each node in the set of candidate
* nodes if it should be returned or not, and if the traversal should be pruned
* (stopped) at this point. The nodes that are traversed by a Traverser are each
* visited exactly once, meaning that the returned iterator of nodes will never
* contain duplicate nodes. This also means that the traversed relationships
* will form a spanning tree over the traversed nodes, with the side effect that
* some internal relationships between nodes in the traversal are not traversed
* (and hence not visible {@link TraversalPosition#lastRelationshipTraversed()
* in the evaluators}).
*
* Typically a Traverser is used in a for-each loop as follows:
*
*
*
* Traverser friends = node.{@link Node#traverse(Traverser.Order, StopEvaluator, ReturnableEvaluator, RelationshipType, Direction) traverse}( {@link Order#BREADTH_FIRST Order.BREADTH_FIRST},
* {@link StopEvaluator#END_OF_GRAPH StopEvaluator.END_OF_GRAPH}, {@link ReturnableEvaluator#ALL_BUT_START_NODE ReturnableEvaluator.ALL_BUT_START_NODE},
* {@link RelationshipType MyRelationshipTypes.KNOWS}, {@link Direction#OUTGOING Direction.OUTGOING} );
* for ( {@link Node Node} friend : friends )
* {
* // ...
* }
*
*
*
* Relationships are equally well traversed regardless of their direction,
* performance-wise.
*
* @see Node#traverse
* @deprecated because of an unnatural and too tight coupling with
* {@link Node}. Also because of the introduction of a new traversal framework
* and the usage of it. The new way of doing traversals is by creating a
* new {@link TraversalDescription} from
* {@link Traversal#description()}, add rules and
* behaviours to it and then calling
* {@link TraversalDescription#traverse(Node...)}.
*/
public interface Traverser extends Iterable
{
/**
* Defines a traversal order as used by the traversal framework.
*
* Nodes can be traversed either {@link #BREADTH_FIRST breadth first} or
* {@link #DEPTH_FIRST depth first}. A depth first traversal is often more
* likely to find one matching node before a breadth first traversal. A
* breadth first traversal will always find the closest matching nodes
* first, which means that {@link TraversalPosition#depth()} will return the
* length of the shortest path from the start node to the node at that
* position, which is not guaranteed for depth first traversals.
*
* A breadth first traversal usually needs to store more state about where
* the traversal should go next than a depth first traversal does. Depth
* first traversals are thus more memory efficient.
*/
public static enum Order
{
/**
* Sets a depth first traversal meaning the traverser will go as deep as
* possible (increasing depth for each traversal) before traversing next
* relationship on same depth.
*/
DEPTH_FIRST,
/**
* Sets a breadth first traversal meaning the traverser will traverse
* all relationships on the current depth before going deeper.
*/
BREADTH_FIRST
}
/**
* Returns the current traversal position, that is where the traversal is at
* the moment. It contains information such as which node we're at, which
* the last traversed relationship was (if any) and at which depth the
* current position is (relative to the starting node). You can use it in
* your traverser for-loop like this:
*
*
*
* Traverser traverser = node.{@link Node#traverse traverse}( ... );
* for ( {@link Node Node} node : traverser )
* {
* {@link TraversalPosition TraversalPosition} currentPosition = traverser.currentPosition();
* // Get "current position" information right here.
* }
*
*
*
* @return The current traversal position
*/
public TraversalPosition currentPosition();
/**
* Returns a collection of all nodes for this traversal. It traverses
* through the graph (according to given filters and evaluators) and
* collects those encountered nodes along the way. When this method has
* returned, this traverser will be at the end of its traversal, such that a
* call to {@code hasNext()} for the {@link #iterator()} will return {@code
* false}.
*
* @return A collection of all nodes for this this traversal.
*/
public Collection getAllNodes();
// Doc: especially remove() thing
/**
* Returns an {@link Iterator} representing the traversal of the graph. The
* iteration is completely lazy in that it will only traverse one step (to
* the next "hit") for every call to {@code hasNext()}/{@code next()}.
*
* Consecutive calls to this method will return the same instance.
*
* @return An iterator for this traverser
*/
// TODO completely resolve issues regarding this (Iterable/Iterator ...)
// Doc: does it create a new iterator or reuse the existing one? This is
// very important! It must be re-use, how else would currentPosition()
// make sense?
public Iterator iterator();
}