Duplicate relations in neo4j with spring data

Question

I am using Neo4j 3.0.0 with spring-data-neo4j (Version 4.1.1.RELEASE) and the neo4j-ogm-bolt-driver. I want to create the same relationship (same type) between two nodes multiple times.

Persisting the @RelationshipEntity multiple times via a GraphRepository interface only creates the relationship once.

After some investigation on this topic I found the workaround described here: Cannot add more than one relationship between nodes in neo4j but in my version of OGM it seems the method createRelationshipBetween is not longer existing in the Neo4jTemplate.

Is there any solution available with OGM or do I have to execute the creation of the duplicate relationships with cypher queries?

I need to have the same relationship-type multiple times between two nodes, therefore to add some other reltionship-type is not an option for me.

Answer 1

SDN 4.1/Neo4j OGM does not allow for multiple relations of the same type between two nodes. The exception to the rule is when you want to maintain 2 relationships- one outgoing and one incoming- this is when you'll specify the OUTGOING and INCOMING directions.

You can have multiple relationships if you model the relationship as a relationship entity- the relationship entity must have at least one property, and the value of at least one property must differ from other relationships between the two nodes. You could consider using a timestamp as a property.

Custom Cypher can do this but there will most likely be issues when loading the entity and persisting it back to the graph with multiple relationships of the same time.