GQL

ISO/IEC 39075: Graph Query Language

GQL is the ISO/IEC standard query language for property graphs. It sits in the same general space for graph data that SQL occupies for relational data.

I was heavily involved in the GQL effort on behalf of Neo4j, and I still participate in that work. For me, GQL is part of a longer line of language design work that runs from Neo4j’s early traversal APIs, through Cypher and openCypher, into standardization.

GQL was not created in isolation. It builds on ideas developed through Cypher, marrying that with SQL to ensure compatibility between the languages: the same things are expressed in the same way in both GQL and SQL. In making that reality, GQL had to become a language suitable for standardization across vendors, products, and technical traditions. That shifts the nature of the work: the problem is no longer only language design, but also shared semantics, formal precision, and consensus.

I expect to write more here later about the technical and organizational work behind GQL, including its relationship to Cypher, SQL/PGQ, and the standardization process itself.