Can I count the precedence relation if all the paths on the same set of nodes

Question

The path is representing for users' browse history.

I'm considering which design structure should I take.

For example,

the red path means the user has browsed

[page A]-> [page B]-> [page B]-> [page C]-> [page B]-> [page A]

the blue path means the user has browsed

[page C]-> [page D]-> [page A]

If I want to select whose browse path is page C earlier than page A ,

The answer should be blue path

How could I design the query in cypher query ,

Which design is suitable for my case?

Thank you.

design 1 (each path share the same nodes)

design 2 (each path should has its own nodes.)

UPDATE

I tried to apply your query in my model,

I want to know if the node 5231 is before than node 7222

But it couldn't get any output.

MATCH p=(x)-[*0..]->(y {code: '5231'})
WHERE NOT ()-->(x)
RETURN p
ORDER BY LENGTH(p)
LIMIT 1;

Data

model data download

Answer 1

Creating disjoint subgraphs for each path is wasteful, and probably would not make it any easier to solve your use case.

Here is a query (that works with a unified graph) that finds the path (or one of them, if there is a tie) in which C appears the earliest.

MATCH p=(x)-[*0..]->(y {id: 'C'})
WHERE NOT ()-->(x)
RETURN p
ORDER BY LENGTH(p)
LIMIT 1;

This particular query ends the paths it finds at the C node, and does not bother to included any subsequent nodes (there could be many branches, and it is not clear which branch you would want to follow).