Neo4j cypher query for deleting all children nodes and its relationships except one child node

Question

I am trying to delete child nodes except one child node.

when I execute this Cypher:

MATCH (n{name:'Java'})-[r]-(c)
return c.name

I am getting possible node names, but I need only longest node name and I have to delete rest of nodes and its relationships.

Please provide more details about your issue. How looks like your data model, a sample data and what you have tried so far are good ideas. Thanks! — Bruno Peres
Is there some reason you can't delete all nodes and then add back the node and properties from the one keeper? — sjc

cybersam cybersam · Accepted Answer · 2018-02-14T19:20:15

This query should work:

MATCH (n{name:'Java'})--(c)
WHERE EXISTS(c.name)
WITH c ORDER BY LENGTH(c.name) DESC
SKIP 1
DETACH DELETE c;

It finds all c nodes that have a name property, orders them in descending order by the length of the name value, skips the c node with the longest name, and uses DETACH DELETE to delete the other c nodes and all their relationships.

Neo4j cypher query for deleting all children nodes and its relationships except one child node

1 Answers