Spring Data Neo4j : relationship in specific order - spring

Question

I'm using Spring Data Neo4j, I have two entities, Person and PhoneNumber. Person has a 1-N relationship with PhoneNumber. I'm looking for a way to always have this relationship in a specific order.
Here's the definition of my entities (those are Groovy classes) :
#NodeEntity
class Person {
#GraphId Long id
String name
#RelatedToVia
Set<NumberRel> numbers
}
#RelationshipEntity(type = "has_number")
class NumberRel {
#GraphId Long id
#StartNode Person person
#EndNode PhoneNumber number
int sequence
}
#NodeEntity
class PhoneNumber {
#GraphId Long id
String number
}
interface PhoneNumberRepository extends GraphRepository<PhoneNumber>, CypherDslRepository<PhoneNumber> {
/* Empty */
}
interface PersonRepository extends GraphRepository<Person>, CypherDslRepository<Person> {
Person findByName(String name)
}
Then I create and save some entities :
def num01 = new PhoneNumber(number: "0101")
phoneNumberRepository.save(num01)
def num02 = new PhoneNumber(number: "0202")
phoneNumberRepository.save(num02)
def alice = new Person(
name: "Alice",
numbers: new LinkedHashSet<NumberRel>()
)
alice.numbers << new NumberRel(
person: alice,
sequence: 10,
number: num01
)
alice.numbers << new NumberRel(
person: alice,
sequence: 20,
number: num02
);
personRepository.save(alice)
And that's where I'm stuck : I would like to tell Spring - or Neo4j - to load the NumberRel relationship ordered by the value of the sequence attribute. I cannot find a way to do that.
Right now, the order is random. The following code prooves it :
(1..3).each {
println "Looking for Alice, pass ${it}"
def p = personRepository.findByName("Alice")
p.numbers.each { number ->
print "${number.sequence} "
}
println()
}
that produces this output :
Looking for Alice, pass 1
10 20
Looking for Alice, pass 2
20 10
Looking for Alice, pass 3
10 20
So my question is : is there a way to have Person.numbers be ordered by NumberRel.sequence ?

Answer 1

if SDN can't sort the results, send the collection into a sort first -
(1..3).each {
println "Looking for Alice, pass ${it}"
def p = personRepository.findByName("Alice")
p.numbers.sort{it.sequence}
p.numbers.each { number ->
print "${number.sequence} "
}
println()
}