Error in getting user nodes while giving no. of hops as an input using spring with neo4j query - spring-data-neo4j

Question

I am executing the query using spring with neo4j..
#Query(value = "START me=node({0}) MATCH me-[:ACTIVEFRIEND*1..{1}]->friend RETURN friend")
public Iterable<User> searchUserInNHops(User a, int hops);
where the depth threshold which the search should go is given as an input hops..
It is not working and giving the error..
The server encountered an internal error that prevented it from fulfilling this request
Request processing failed; nested exception is org.neo4j.rest.graphdb.RestResultException: Properties on pattern elements are not allowed in MATCH
Neo4j Version: 1.9.0
I will appreciate if someone can help me on this.
Thanks
Hemant

Answer 1

You can't specify the depth as a paramater. If you want this to be dynamic, you might want to consider alternative approaches. Some of them are:
Let your repository class extend from CypherDslRepository. Use should use the neo4j-cypher-dsl module to build a query object.
Use the Neo4jTemplate class. You could provide a composed query string to the query method.
Use the traversal API of Neo4j core, like
Traversal:
for (final Path position : Traversal.description().depthFirst() .relationships(RelationType.ACTIVE_FRIEND, Direction.OUTGOING),
Direction.INCOMING).evaluator(Evaluators.fromDepth(1))
.evaluator(Evaluators.toDepth(yourDynamicValue))
.evaluator(Evaluators.excludeStartPosition()).traverse(node)) {
position.endNode();
}