Return Clause

Return and With provide similar functionality, both for further aggregation or projection of data. The difference is that Return needs to return and display the processed results. Here we won’t go into too much detail about Return’s functionality itself, as you can refer to the usage in the With Section. We mainly focus on result output and some common Return usage patterns.

Return Nodes

Return Nodes with Single Label


Match (a:person) Return a;

The output shows each person node’s internal ID (assigned by the graph database), label, and all properties:


+-------------------------------------------------------+
| a                                                     |
+=======================================================+
| {_ID: 0, _LABEL: person, name: marko, age: 29} |
+-------------------------------------------------------+
| {_ID: 1, _LABEL: person, name: vadas, age: 27} |
+-------------------------------------------------------+
| {_ID: 2, _LABEL: person, name: josh, age: 32}  |
+-------------------------------------------------------+
| {_ID: 3, _LABEL: person, name: peter, age: 35} |
+-------------------------------------------------------+

Return Nodes with Multiple Labels


Match (a) Return a;

The output shows each node’s internal ID, label, and all properties in its own node type:


+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| a                                                                           |
+=============================================================================+
| {_ID: 0, _LABEL: person, name: marko, age: 29}                       |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {_ID: 1, _LABEL: person, name: vadas, age: 27}                       |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {_ID: 2, _LABEL: person, name: josh, age: 32}                        |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {_ID: 3, _LABEL: person, name: peter, age: 35}                       |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {_ID: 72057594037927936, _LABEL: software, name: lop, lang: java}    |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {_ID: 72057594037927937, _LABEL: software, name: ripple, lang: java} |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Return Relationships


Match (a:person)-[k]->(b)
Return k;

The output includes the relationship’s internal ID, label, all properties, and the source and destination node labels and IDs:


+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| k                                                                                                                                    |
+======================================================================================================================================+
| {_ID: 1, _LABEL: knows, _SRC_LABEL: person, _DST_LABEL: person, _SRC_ID: 0, _DST_ID: 1, weight: 0.5}                                 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {_ID: 2, _LABEL: knows, _SRC_LABEL: person, _DST_LABEL: person, _SRC_ID: 0, _DST_ID: 2, weight: 1.0}                                 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {_ID: 1103806595072, _LABEL: created, _SRC_LABEL: person, _DST_LABEL: software, _SRC_ID: 0, _DST_ID: 72057594037927936, weight: 0.4} |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {_ID: 1103808692224, _LABEL: created, _SRC_LABEL: person, _DST_LABEL: software, _SRC_ID: 2, _DST_ID: 72057594037927936, weight: 0.4} |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {_ID: 1103808692225, _LABEL: created, _SRC_LABEL: person, _DST_LABEL: software, _SRC_ID: 2, _DST_ID: 72057594037927937, weight: 1.0} |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {_ID: 1103809740800, _LABEL: created, _SRC_LABEL: person, _DST_LABEL: software, _SRC_ID: 3, _DST_ID: 72057594037927936, weight: 0.2} |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Return Paths

Return Repeated Paths


Match (a:person)-[k*1..2]->(c)
Return k;

Return All Nodes/Rels in Paths


Match (a:person)-[k*1..2]->(c)
Return nodes(k) as nodes, rels(k) as rels;

Return Properties of Node/Rels in Paths


Match (a:person)-[k*1..2]->(c)
Return properties(nodes(k), 'name') as names, properties(rels(k), 'weight') as weights;

Return with TopK

Return, OrderBy, Limit combination used for outputting TopK query results


Match (a:person)-[:knows]->(b:person)
Return a.name, b.name
Order By a.name ASC, b.name ASC
Limit 2;

output:


+-------------+-------------+
| _0_a.name   | _2_b.name   |
+=============+=============+
| marko       | josh        |
+-------------+-------------+
| marko       | vadas       |
+-------------+-------------+

Return with Aggregation

Output aggregation results


Match (a:person)-[:knows]->(b:person)
Return label(a) as a_label, label(b) as b_label, count(*) as cnt;

Return with Distinct

Output non-duplicate results


Match (a)
Return distinct label(a);