Using Cypher to generate Cypher statements to recreate indexes and constraints

Oct 17, 2025
Knowledge

Details

The following can be used to extract index definitions and constraint definitions from an existing database and the resultant output can be played back on another Neo4j database. For example with the :play movies dataset as when run from the Neo4j Browser, we can define the following indexes and constraints

// create a schema index on :Movie(title)
// 4.x syntax
create index movieTitles for (n:Movies) on (n.title);
//
// or 3.x syntax and a schema index on :Person(name)
create index on :Person(name);
//
// create a constraint on :Movie such that no 2 Movies have the same tagline
create constraint on (n:Movie) assert (n.tagline) is unique;

and with the above dataset the following is produced

3.x ( note the output only includes 2 indexes since the first index statement above is in 4.x format and will not run on 3.x)

All Indexes

neo4j> call db.indexes();
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| description                | indexName       | tokenNames | properties  | state    | type                   | progress | provider                              | id | failureMessage |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| "INDEX ON :Person(name)"   | "Unnamed index" | ["Person"] | ["name"]    | "ONLINE" | "node_label_property"  | 100.0    | {version: "1.0", key: "native-btree"} | 1  | ""             |
| "INDEX ON :Movie(tagline)" | "index_3"       | ["Movie"]  | ["tagline"] | "ONLINE" | "node_unique_property" | 100.0    | {version: "1.0", key: "native-btree"} | 3  | ""             |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

2 rows available after 244 ms, consumed after another 12 ms

All constraints

neo4j> call db.constraints();
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| description                                                    |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| "CONSTRAINT ON ( movie:Movie ) ASSERT movie.tagline IS UNIQUE" |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+

1 row available after 13 ms, consumed after another 1 ms

4.x

All indexes

neo4j> call db.indexes();
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| id | name                  | state    | populationPercent | uniqueness  | type    | entityType | labelsOrTypes | properties  | provider           |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| 3  | "constraint_e7afa4cc" | "ONLINE" | 100.0             | "UNIQUE"    | "BTREE" | "NODE"     | ["Movie"]     | ["tagline"] | "native-btree-1.0" |
| 2  | "index_5c0607ad"      | "ONLINE" | 100.0             | "NONUNIQUE" | "BTREE" | "NODE"     | ["Person"]    | ["name"]    | "native-btree-1.0" |
| 1  | "movieTitles"         | "ONLINE" | 100.0             | "NONUNIQUE" | "BTREE" | "NODE"     | ["Movies"]    | ["title"]   | "native-btree-1.0" |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

3 rows available after 16 ms, consumed after another 1 ms

All constriants

neo4j> call db.constraints();
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| name                  | description                                                      |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| "constraint_e7afa4cc" | "CONSTRAINT ON ( movie:Movie ) ASSERT (movie.tagline) IS UNIQUE" |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

1 row available after 10 ms, consumed after another 6 ms

3.x To export the DROP AND CREATE statement for indexes and constraints one can run:

CALL db.indexes() YIELD description
RETURN 'CREATE ' + description + ';'   ;

To extract Cypher CREATE CONSTRAINT statements run:

CALL db.constraints() YIELD description
RETURN 'CREATE ' + description + ';' ;

4.x

neo4j> call db.schemaStatements();
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| name                  | type         | createStatement                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    | dropStatement                           |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| "movieTitles"         | "INDEX"      | "CALL db.createIndex('movieTitles', ['Movies'], ['title'], 'native-btree-1.0', {`spatial.cartesian-3d.min`: [-1000000.0, -1000000.0, -1000000.0],`spatial.cartesian.min`: [-1000000.0, -1000000.0],`spatial.wgs-84.min`: [-180.0, -90.0],`spatial.cartesian-3d.max`: [1000000.0, 1000000.0, 1000000.0],`spatial.cartesian.max`: [1000000.0, 1000000.0],`spatial.wgs-84-3d.min`: [-180.0, -90.0, -1000000.0],`spatial.wgs-84-3d.max`: [180.0, 90.0, 1000000.0],`spatial.wgs-84.max`: [180.0, 90.0]})"                               | "DROP INDEX `movieTitles`"              |
| "constraint_e7afa4cc" | "CONSTRAINT" | "CALL db.createUniquePropertyConstraint( 'constraint_e7afa4cc', ['Movie'], ['tagline'], 'native-btree-1.0', {`spatial.cartesian-3d.min`: [-1000000.0, -1000000.0, -1000000.0],`spatial.cartesian.min`: [-1000000.0, -1000000.0],`spatial.wgs-84.min`: [-180.0, -90.0],`spatial.cartesian-3d.max`: [1000000.0, 1000000.0, 1000000.0],`spatial.cartesian.max`: [1000000.0, 1000000.0],`spatial.wgs-84-3d.min`: [-180.0, -90.0, -1000000.0],`spatial.wgs-84-3d.max`: [180.0, 90.0, 1000000.0],`spatial.wgs-84.max`: [180.0, 90.0]} )" | "DROP CONSTRAINT `constraint_e7afa4cc`" |
| "index_5c0607ad"      | "INDEX"      | "CALL db.createIndex('index_5c0607ad', ['Person'], ['name'], 'native-btree-1.0', {`spatial.cartesian-3d.min`: [-1000000.0, -1000000.0, -1000000.0],`spatial.cartesian.min`: [-1000000.0, -1000000.0],`spatial.wgs-84.min`: [-180.0, -90.0],`spatial.cartesian-3d.max`: [1000000.0, 1000000.0, 1000000.0],`spatial.cartesian.max`: [1000000.0, 1000000.0],`spatial.wgs-84-3d.min`: [-180.0, -90.0, -1000000.0],`spatial.wgs-84-3d.max`: [180.0, 90.0, 1000000.0],`spatial.wgs-84.max`: [180.0, 90.0]})"                             | "DROP INDEX `index_5c0607ad`"           |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

3 rows available after 24 ms, consumed after another 7 ms

Title

Using Cypher to generate Cypher statements to recreate indexes and constraints

Article Created Date

3/15/2024, 10:56 PM

URL Name

226879267-Using-Cypher-to-generate-Cypher-statements-to-recreate-indexes-and-constraints

Last Modified Date

10/17/2025, 2:42 AM