apoc.export.csv.query() config for quotes: 'ifNeeded' not working

[JMHReif]

Expected Behavior (Mandatory)

Should produce a CSV that only has quotes around the string values.

Expected following output:

group_id,product_group
1,"Whole Bean/Teas"
2,"Beverages"
3,"Add-ons"
4,"Food"
5,"Merchandise"

Actual Behavior (Mandatory)

Not having any quotes around any value. Output looks the same as when quotes: 'none'

How to Reproduce the Problem

• Test the apoc.export.csv.query quote issue with config stream: true, quotes: 'ifNeeded'

Simple Dataset (where it's possibile)

//Insert here a set of Cypher statements that helps us to reproduce the problem
WITH ["Whole Bean/Teas", "Beverages", "Add-ons", "Food", "Merchandise"] as list
UNWIND list as item
MERGE (g:Group {group: item});

Steps (Mandatory)

1. Create the sample data set
2. Run the following query:

WITH "MATCH (group:Group) 
WITH collect(group) AS groups 
WITH groups, range(0, size(groups) - 1) AS ordinal_positions
UNWIND ordinal_positions AS id
WITH id+1 as group_id, groups[id] as group
return group_id, group.group as product_group" AS query
CALL apoc.export.csv.query(query, null, {stream: true, quotes: 'ifNeeded'})
YIELD data
RETURN data;

Screenshots (where it's possibile)

Specifications (Mandatory)

Currently used versions

Versions

• OS:
• Neo4j: Aura
• Neo4j-Apoc: Aura

[JoelBergstrand]

Thanks for the excellent bug report! Agree that it looks like a bug, we'll look into it 🧐

[JoelBergstrand]

I've looked into it now and this is the expected behavior of using 'ifNeeded'. It escapes characters such as commas and not the column as a whole. Alternatively, you could use 'always' which puts all values in quotation marks and would get you the following result:

"group_id","product_group" 
"1","Whole Bean/Teas"
"2","Beverages"
...

[JMHReif]

That turns everything into strings, including integer values, dates, and so on. I was expecting the 'if-needed' option to not turn integers and other non-string data types into strings. 😕