In cypher, return node with latest date in relationship property

Question

Here is the scenario. I am modeling a person that lives at one or more different locations. Included in the relationship is the start date (represented as ms since epoch) when they moved in.

(:person{name:'bill'}) -[:livesAt {since:1111000}]->(:place{name:'apartmentA'})

(:person{name:'bill'}) -[:livesAt {since:2222000}]->(:place{name:'apartmentB'})

I want to write a query that returns the single place node corresponding to the most recent place of residence for a given person. The most recent place is corresponding to the largest value in the 'since' property of the relationship. Note that multiple people may live at a given place.

I was trying something like this:

MATCH (n:person {name: 'bill'})-[r:livesAt]->(m:place)
WITH r
ORDER BY r.since DESC
LIMIT 1
MATCH (n:person)-[r]->(o:place)
RETURN o.name

If my query worked with the example above, I would expect to get 'apartmentB' back as the result.

Answer 1

The problem (maybe) is located on the last match clause. I tested a simpler version on Neo4j SandBox and seemed OK:

MATCH (n:person {name: 'bill'})-[r:livesAt]->(m:place)
WITH n, m
ORDER BY r.since DESC
LIMIT 1
RETURN m.name as place, n.name as person

Answer 2

Alternately, you can use max clause to get the max value of the relationship then find that node that corresponds to the most recent residence.

MATCH (n:person {name: 'bill'})-[r:livesAt]->(:place)   
WITH max(r.since) as most_recent, n
MATCH (n)-[:livesAt {since: most_recent}]->(m:place)
RETURN m