What gives the performance to build and search a small social graph

How-to Discussions
1

Hi all,

I have more of a general development question. In terms of speed (storage) I’m trying to build and search a (small) social graph. (2 steps pf separation: known person -> friend -> friend --> 2nd known person)

_Step 1: _ Build the graph and store (once in a while refresh)

person 1 -> friends -> friends' friends

_Step 2: _ Search
see which friends of person 2 are in the friends’ friends of person 1

_Step 3: _ Show the matches

I consider two options for building / search:

Option 1:

Step 1: Small object (potential longer search?)

{'name': 'person 1', 'data': 'friend A, friend B'}
{'name': 'friend A', 'data': 'person 1, friend B, friend C'}

Step 2:
Search all ‘data’, get the ‘name’ from each match

Option 2:

Step 1 :bigger objects (potentially quicker search)

  • Index with all people
{'person 1, friend A, friend B, person 1, friend B, friend C'}
  • Object with parents of each index
{'name':'person 1', 'data':''}
{'name':'friend A', 'data':'person 1'}
{'name':'friend B', 'data':'person 1'}
{'name':'person 1', 'data':'person 1, friend A'}
{'name':'friend B', 'data':'person 1, friend A'}

Step 2:
The idea is then to search the index (probably quicker) and get the corresponding data parents pair from the Object.

Extra info:
content will be userids (only integers)

Any thoughts on search performance vs memory usage on these two different options?

thanks

2

Hi!

Where are you planning to store the graph? In memory as JS objects? If so, the fastest is to simply have the objects reference each other.

3

Basically Yes. As Js objects. Only the relations to known persons I’ll put in Observables.

Person 1 is the owner of the device so his graph I would like to store on the device as well, so it’s straight available when restarting the app.

Flow: Person 1 will get a message (request) from unknown person 2, geographically nearby. My objective is to show person 1 that person 2 is actually a friend of a friends’ friend. (further is irrelevant for now)

Anders Lassen wrote:

If so, the fastest is to simply have the objects reference each other.

What do you exactly mean with “have the objects reference each other”

4

What do you exactly mean with “have the objects reference each other”

Simply like this:

 var person1 = { name: "Joe", friends: [] }
 var person2 = { name: "Bob", friends: [] }
 person1.friends.push(person2);

If you want the friend relationships to be mutable, you can replace the arrays with observables.