Apache AGE is a graph database that provides SQL-based graph modelling capabilities for PostgreSQL. It has opened new avenues in data management, enabling both relational and graph data processing within the same database system. Today, we'll explore data import and export techniques with Apache AGE, ensuring we're equipped to handle our graph data effectively.

Introduction to AGE

Apache AGE inherits the powerful features of PostgreSQL and integrates the Apache TinkerPop Gremlin graph model and traversal language. AGE extends PostgreSQL's SQL syntax to support graph pattern matching queries, thus enabling relational and graph data processing.

Data Import in Apache AGE

Let's begin by setting up our environment. Please ensure that you have AGE installed and ready.

AGE Graph Creation

First, we need to create a graph. We can do so using the following SQL query:

SELECT * FROM cypher('CREATE (n:Person {name: $name, age: $age}) RETURN n', 
'{ "name" : "John", "age" : 30 }') AS (n agtype);

The above query creates a node labeled Person with the properties name and age.

Importing Data
To import data, we create a copy from SQL statement in AGE. The CSV file format is commonly used, so we'll use it as our example. Let's assume we have a CSV file named persons.csv with the following data:

name,age
John,30
Jane,25
Bob,20

We can import this data into our AGE graph as follows:

COPY Person(name, age) FROM '/path/to/persons.csv' DELIMITER ',' CSV HEADER;

Data Export in Apache AGE

Exporting data from AGE is also straightforward. We can use the copy to SQL command to export the data to a CSV file.

COPY (SELECT * FROM Person) TO '/path/to/export.csv' WITH CSV HEADER;

This command will export all the data in the Person table to a CSV file.

Conclusion

Apache AGE, with its ability to perform both relational and graph data processing, provides flexibility in data management. This post provided a brief overview of how to import and export data using Apache AGE, which could be the beginning of your journey in handling complex graph data structures with the ease of SQL.

Remember to handle your data carefully and ensure that it is correctly imported and exported to maintain its integrity.

Next time, we'll delve deeper into the graph querying techniques of Apache AGE. Until then, keep exploring and learning!

References

• Github
• Docs