[TINKERPOP-2641] Allow orderability on any type

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Done
• Affects Version/s: 3.5.1
• Fix Version/s: 3.6.0
• Component/s: process
• Assignee: Stephen Mallette
• Reporter: Stephen Mallette
• Created: 04/Nov/21 12:33
• Updated: 18/Jan/22 14:02
• Resolved: 18/Jan/22 14:02

Description

Currently, TinkerPop follows comparability for orderability, thus non-comparable and mixed-type values will fail in ordering. The proposed change is to be able to order any types.

gremlin> g.V().order(). // 3.5.x
org.apache.tinkerpop.gremlin.tinkergraph.structure.TinkerVertex cannot be cast to java.lang.Comparable
Type ':help' or ':h' for help.
Display stack trace? [yN]
gremlin> g.V(1).values('name').union(identity(),V(2)).order() // 3.5.x
org.apache.tinkerpop.gremlin.tinkergraph.structure.TinkerVertex cannot be cast to java.lang.Comparable
Type ':help' or ':h' for help.
Display stack trace? [yN]n
gremlin> g.V().order()  // proposed
==>v[1]
==>v[2]
==>v[3]
==>v[4]
==>v[5]
==>v[6]
gremlin> g.V(1).values('name').union(identity(),V(2)).order() // proposed
==>v[2]
==>marko
gremlin> g.addV().property("key", 100)
==>v[0]
gremlin> g.addV().property("key", "100000")
==>v[2]
gremlin> g.V().values('key').order() // 3.5.x
java.lang.Integer cannot be cast to java.lang.String
Type ':help' or ':h' for help.
Display stack trace? [yN]
gremlin> g.V().values('key').order() // proposed
==>100
==>100000

To sort across any types of values, we define the order between each type as follows:
(In this order, ID, label, property key and property value are considered as a part of primitive types)

• `nulltype`
• Boolean
• Number
• Date
• String
• Vertex
• Edge
• VertexProperty
• Property
• Path
• List
• Map

Issue Links

• is related to: TINKERPOP-2622 Enforce ordering semantics in feature tests