Cypher Operators

Precedence

Operators are listed from highest to lowest precedence. Operators at the same level associate left-to-right unless noted.

Level	Operator(s)	Associativity
1 (highest)	. (property access), [ (subscript/slice)	Left
2	Unary - (negation), NOT	Right
3	*, /, %	Left
4	+, -	Left
5	=, <>, <, >, <=, >=	Left
6	IS NULL, IS NOT NULL	—
7	STARTS WITH, ENDS WITH, CONTAINS, =~, IN	Left
8	AND	Left
9	XOR	Left
10 (lowest)	OR	Left

Use parentheses to override precedence.

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Arithmetic Operators

Operator	Syntax	Description	Example	Result
Addition	a + b	Numeric addition; string concatenation	2 + 3	5
Subtraction	a - b	Numeric subtraction	10 - 4	6
Multiplication	a * b	Numeric multiplication	3 * 4	12
Division	a / b	Numeric division; integer inputs yield float	7 / 2	3.5
Modulo	a % b	Remainder	10 % 3	1
Unary negation	-a	Negate a number	-n.age	negated

Type behavior

• Integer + Integer → Integer
• Integer + Float → Float
• String + String → String concatenation
• Any arithmetic with null → null

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Comparison Operators

Operator	Syntax	Description
Equals	a = b	Value equality
Not equals	a <> b	Value inequality
Less than	a < b
Greater than	a > b
Less or equal	a <= b
Greater or equal	a >= b

Type behavior

• Comparing null with any operator returns null (not true or false).
• Comparisons between incompatible types return null.
• Strings compare lexicographically.

Examples

WHERE n.age >= 18
WHERE n.name <> 'Alice'
WHERE n.score = 100

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Boolean Operators

Operator	Syntax	Description
AND	a AND b	true if both operands are true
OR	a OR b	true if at least one operand is true
NOT	NOT a	Logical negation
XOR	a XOR b	true if exactly one operand is true

Three-valued logic (null behavior)

a	b	a AND b	a OR b
true	null	null	true
false	null	false	null
null	null	null	null

NOT null → null

Examples

WHERE n.age > 18 AND n.active = true
WHERE n.role = 'admin' OR n.role = 'mod'
WHERE NOT n.deleted
WHERE (n.a = 1) XOR (n.b = 1)

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String Operators

Operator	Syntax	Description	Example
Starts with	s STARTS WITH prefix	Prefix match	n.name STARTS WITH 'Al'
Ends with	s ENDS WITH suffix	Suffix match	n.email ENDS WITH '.com'
Contains	s CONTAINS sub	Substring search	n.bio CONTAINS 'engineer'
Regex match	s =~ pattern	PCRE regex; full-string match	n.name =~ 'Al.*'
Concatenation	s1 + s2	Join two strings	n.first + ' ' + n.last

All string operators are case-sensitive. =~ uses PCRE syntax via the regexp() SQL function registered by the extension.

Examples

WHERE n.name STARTS WITH 'A'
WHERE n.email ENDS WITH '.org'
WHERE n.bio CONTAINS 'graph'
WHERE n.code =~ '[A-Z]{3}[0-9]+'

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List Operators

Operator	Syntax	Description	Example
Membership	x IN list	true if x is an element of list	n.role IN ['admin', 'mod']
Concatenation	list1 + list2	Combine two lists	[1,2] + [3,4] → [1,2,3,4]
Index access	list[index]	Element at 0-based index; negative index counts from end	list[0], list[-1]
Slice	list[start..end]	Sublist from start (inclusive) to end (exclusive)	list[1..3]

Examples

WHERE n.status IN ['active', 'pending']
RETURN [1, 2] + [3, 4]       -- [1, 2, 3, 4]
RETURN [10, 20, 30][1]       -- 20
RETURN [10, 20, 30, 40][1..3] -- [20, 30]

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Null Operators

Operator	Syntax	Description
Is null	expr IS NULL	true if expression is null
Is not null	expr IS NOT NULL	true if expression is not null

Examples

WHERE n.email IS NOT NULL
WHERE n.deletedAt IS NULL

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Property Access Operators

Operator	Syntax	Description
Dot notation	entity.property	Access a property by name
String subscript	entity['property']	Access a property by string key
Nested dot	n.a.b	Access nested JSON field (requires a to be a JSON-type property)

String-key subscript (n['key']) is normalized at transform time to the same SQL as dot notation. Both forms are equivalent.

Examples

RETURN n.name
RETURN n['name']
RETURN n.address.city     -- requires address stored as JSON