We will be further expanding the graph database capabilities with several new features. In this blog we will discuss one of those features that is now available for public preview in Azure SQL Database and SQL Server 2019 CTP2.1: use of derived tables and views on graph tables in MATCH queries.
Graph queries on Azure SQL Database now support using view and derived table aliases in the MATCH syntax. To use these aliases in MATCH, the views and derived tables must be created either on a node or edge table which may or may not have some filters on it or a set of node or edge tables combined together using the UNION ALL operator. The ability to use derived table and view aliases in MATCH queries, could be very useful in scenarios where you are looking to query heterogeneous entities or heterogeneous connections between two or more entities in your graph.
It’s good to see the product team expand on what they released in 2017, getting the graph product closer to production-quality.