9.6. Unwind

With UNWIND, you can transform any collection back into individual rows. These collections can be parameters that were passed in, previously ++COLLECT+ed result or other collection expressions.

One common usage of unwind is to create distinct collections. Another is to create data from parameter collections that are provided to the query.

UNWIND requires you to specify a new name for the inner values.

Unwind a collection

We want to transform the literal collection into rows named x and return them.

Query. 

UNWIND[1,2,3] AS x
RETURN x

Each value of the original collection is returned as an individual row.

Result

x
3 rows

1

2

3

Try this query live. none UNWIND [1,2,3] as x RETURN x

Create a distinct collection

We want to transform a collection of duplicates into a set using DISTINCT.

Query. 

WITH [1,1,2,2] AS coll UNWIND coll AS x
WITH DISTINCT x
RETURN collect(x) AS SET

Each value of the original collection is unwound and passed through distinct to create a unique set.

Result

set
1 row

[1,2]

Try this query live. none WITH [1,1,2,2] as coll UNWIND coll as x WITH DISTINCT x RETURN collect(x) as set

Create nodes from a collection parameter

Create a number of nodes and relationships from a parameter-list without using FOREACH

Parameters. 

{
  "events" : [ {
    "year" : 2014,
    "id" : 1
  }, {
    "year" : 2014,
    "id" : 2
  } ]
}

Query. 

UNWIND { events } AS event
MERGE (y:Year { year:event.year })
MERGE (y)<-[:IN]-(e:Event { id:event.id })
RETURN e.id AS x
ORDER BY x

Each value of the original collection is unwound and passed through distinct to create a unique set.

Result

x
2 rows
Nodes created: 3
Relationships created: 2
Properties set: 3
Labels added: 3

1

2