[TINKERPOP-2284] Make it easier to return more structure of graph elements

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Done
• Affects Version/s: 3.3.8
• Fix Version/s: 3.4.4, 3.5.0
• Component/s: process
• Assignee: Stephen Mallette
• Reporter: Stephen Mallette
• Created: 19/Aug/19 14:44
• Updated: 13/Sep/19 09:39
• Resolved: 13/Sep/19 09:39

Description

There are times where you want the structural elements of an Edge beyond id and label when you valueMap(true), which forces something like:

gremlin> g.E(12).union(valueMap(true),
......1>               project('inV','outV','inVLabel','outVLabel').
......2>                 by(inV().id()).
......3>                 by(outV().id()).
......4>                 by(inV().label()).
......5>                 by(outV().label())).unfold().
......6>               group().
......7>                 by(keys).
......8>                 by(select(values))
==>[inV:3,id:12,inVLabel:software,weight:0.2,outVLabel:person,label:created,outV:6]

We could continue to overload valueMap() and do stuff like with(adjacents) or other such things, but perhaps we should just leave that step alone since it is so widely used. Maybe we just need a new step? How about elementMap() which preserves the structure of any graph element, meaning:

• Vertex - include id and label plus properties as single cardinality - multiproperties could be included using with()??)
• Edge - include id, label, inVId, outVId, outVLabel, inVLabel (basically full reference elements for vertices plus properties
• VertexProperty - include id and label plus properties

If we had a step like that then the above would become:

g.E(12).elementMap()

other ways?

I think the key thing here is that prior to "reference elements" users relied on the full Vertex or Edge to get all data and given that we don't have that anymore we need a way to allow users to easily convert the entire structure of a graph element to its Map counterpart.

Issue Links

• links to: GitHub Pull Request #1189