Boolean, numeric, and string literals

This page describes the literal forms of numerical (INTEGER and FLOAT), STRING, and BOOLEAN values in expressions.

Expressions containing unsanitized user input may make your application vulnerable to Cypher® injection. Consider using parameters instead. For more information, see Neo4j Knowledge Base → Protecting against Cypher Injection.

Boolean

Boolean literals represent BOOLEAN values. A boolean literal may be written as:

  • The literal true

  • The literal false

Numerical

Numerical literals can represent INTEGER or FLOAT values. A numerical literal may be written as:

  • A decimal INTEGER literal: 13, -40000

  • A hexadecimal INTEGER literal (prefix 0x): 0x13af, 0xFC3A9, -0x66eff

  • An octal INTEGER literal (prefix 0o): 0o1372, -0o5671

  • A FLOAT literal in common notation: 3.14

  • A FLOAT literal in scientific notation: 6.022E23, 1e-9

  • Literals for special FLOAT values: Inf, Infinity, NaN

Any numeric literal may contain an underscore _ between digits. There may be an underscore between the 0x or 0o and the digits for hexadecimal and octal literals. For example: 1_000_000, 0x_FC3A9, and 0o_1372.

String

String literals represent STRING values. They are written using single(') or double quotes (") and may contain escape sequences using a backslash (\). A string literal may be written as:

  • A STRING quoted with single quotes: 'Hello, 42'

  • A STRING quoted with double quotes: "Hello, 42"

  • A STRING with whitespace: ' hello '

  • A STRING with escape sequences: 'Line 1\nLine 2', 'Tab\tseparated'

  • A STRING containing Unicode characters: '그래프는 어디에나 있다'

  • A STRING using a Unicode code point: 'Name: \u004Aohn' (produces 'Name: John')

String literal escape sequences

String literals can contain the following escape sequences:

Escape sequence Character

\t

Tab

\b

Backspace

\n

Newline

\r

Carriage return

\f

Form feed

\'

Single quote

\"

Double quote

\\

Backslash

\uxxxx

Unicode UTF-16 code point (4 hex digits must follow the \u)