Question

I want to use a graph database using php. Can you point out some resources on where to get started? Is there any example code / tutorial out there? Or are there any other methods of storing data that relate to each other in totally random/abstract situations?

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Very abstract example of the relations needed: John relates to Mary, both relate to School, John is Tall, Mary is Short, John has Blue Eyes, Mary has Green Eyes, query I want is which people are related to ‘Short people that have Green Eyes and go to School’ -> answer John

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Another example:

    TrackA -> ArtistA
           -> ArtistB

           -> AlbumA -----> [ label ]
           -> AlbumB -----> [   A   ]

           -> TrackA:Remix
           -> Genre:House

           -> [ Album ] -----> [ label ]
   TrackB  -> [   C   ]        [   B   ]

Example queries:

Which Genre is TrackB closer to? answer: House – because it’s related to Album C, which is related to TrackA and is related to Genre:House

Get all Genre:House related albums of Label A : result: AlbumA, AlbumB – because they both have TrackA which is related to Genre:House

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It is possible in MySQL but it would require a fixed set of attributes/columns for each item and a complex non-flexible query, instead I need every attribute to be an item by itself and instead of ‘belonging’ to something, to be ‘related’ to something.

Answer 1

There’s some work going on to make the Neo4j graph database available from PHP, see this wiki page for more information! Regarding how to model your domain as a graph, the user mailing list tends to be pretty awesome.

Update: there’s now a short getting started blog post for a PHP neo4j REST client.