Using regular expressions beyond matching in Cypher

Question

I make the following query

neo4j-sh (?)$ start n=node(*) where n.name  =~ \'u(.*)\' return n; 
==> +-----------------------+
==> | n                     |
         


        

Answer 1

You can't do that in Cypher (as far as I know)--regex is just for matching.

If it's always just a single letter in front of it, you can take the substring:

start n=node(*) 
set n.userId = substring(n.name, 1)

Answer 2

I had the same issue, so I developed a tiny Neo4j server plugin that lets you run regular expressions over REST API and against string node properties for matching/splitting/substituting purposes. It can return the results inside Neo4j console or save them to a property.

Have a look at it, maybe you find it useful: https://github.com/mszargar/Regx4Neo

It takes just a minute to install, but you will have to restart Neo4j for it to take effect.