GLL-based Context-Free Path Querying for Neo4j

Abstract

We propose GLL-based context-free path querying algorithm which handles queries in Extended Backus-Naur Form (EBNF) using Recursive State Machines (RSM). Utilization of EBNF allows one to combine traditional regular expressions and mutually recursive patterns in constraints natively. The proposed algorithm solves both the reachability-only and the all-paths problems for the all-pairs and the multiple sources cases. The evaluation on realworld graphs demonstrates that utilization of RSMs increases performance of query evaluation. Being implemented as a stored procedure for Neo4j, our solution demonstrates better performance than a similar solution for RedisGraph. Performance of our solution of regular path queries is comparable with performance of native Neo4j solution, and in some cases our solution requires significantly less memory.