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Traversing Graphs

This page is focussed on traversing GraphSlices, i.e. traversing the knowledge graph across "space" at a specific time. ZefDB also provides a similar API to traverse the eternal graph across space and time: traversing eternal graphs

Finding all Attached Atoms​

z_person | Outs        # show all atoms attached to   
z_person | Ins  
z_person | ins_and_outs

Filtering on Specific Relation Types​

z_person | Outs[RT.FriendOf]  
z_person | Ins[RT.FriendOf]  
z_person | ins_and_outs[RT.FriendOf]

Why are In, Out, ... capitalized in contrast to all other ZefOps? There would be a name collision with Python's "in" keyword.

Accessing "Fields"​

Note that the equivalent of fields are relations of a specific type that occur exactly once 

z_person | Out[RT.FirstName] # there must be exactly one such relation

The operators In, Out, Ins, Outs, ... always return ZefRef(s)

Getting Hold of the Relations​

In some cases we may not be interested in the atoms connected as source / target of a specified relation, but rather want a ZefRef to the relation itself. 

z_person | out_rel[RT.FriendOf]    # in case of a one-to-one relation  
z_person | out_rels[RT.FriendOf]   # varaible number  
  
z_person | in_rel[RT.FriendOf]  
z_person | in_rels[RT.FriendOf]

Shorthand Notation​

z_person | F.FirstName     # returns a value  
z_person | Fs.FriendOf     # returns a List[ZefRef] if an entity is attached

F is a shortcut symbol (for "field"): using the dot notation, the expression F.Something is a ZefOp and has similar behavior to Out[RT.FriendOf].

It is slightly more opinionated though:

  1. If an attribute entity is attached as the target of the traversed relation, the value assigned in that Graph Slice is automatically returned (as opposed to a ZefRef to the attribute entity)
  2. If an entity or relation is attached as a target, a ZefRef to this is returned.

This is convenient when writing high level code, where you may often be interested in the actual value.
Fs is the one-to-many counterpart to F (as Outs is to Out).

Filtering on Target Type​

z_person | Outs[RT.FriendOf][ET.Dog]

A type can be curried in as a second argument. This can be seen as a form of pattern matching which filters out all nodes connected by both the specified relation set and target type set.