copying / cloing neo4django model object

Question

I was wondering whether there was a smart way to create an exact clone of a node in neo4django without having to copy every property and relationship manually.

p = Person.create(name="John Doe")
p.connect(...)

new_p = p 

won't work, as new_p won't be a clone (a new, individual node with same content), but rather a different pointer to the same node.

Answer 1

So do you need a new node in the graph, or a copy of the Django model?

To create a copy with the same properties (but not the same relationships) and a new in-graph node, you could try something like

p = Person.objects.create(name="John Doe")
p2 = Person.objects.create(**p.node.properties)

Doing the same thing with relationships is a little more difficult, but I've done it in the past and can write up a gist if that's what you need. Alternatively, this could also all be done in Gremlin or Cypher (with neo4django's helper functions) if that's a better fit, eg

from neo4django.db import connection
p = Person._neo4j_instance(connection.gremlin('results=<some code that yields a copied node>'))

If you just need a copy of the Django model that's a different Python object (but still attached to the same node) you might try

>>> p = Person.objects.create(name="John Doe")
>>> p2 = Person.from_model(p)
>>> print p2.name
John Doe

HTH!

EDIT:

How could I have forgotten- there's an included convenience method for this!

>>> john = Person.objects.create(name="John Doe")
>>> john_2 = john.copy_model()
>>> john.name == john_2.name
True

Relationships and properties are all copied, though the returned model is unsaved- they don't share a node in the graph.

Sorry about the run around, maybe this will be a little easier.