radians
Generic Description
Converts degrees to radians for trigonometric functions. It is documented separately because numeric transforms change ranking, thresholds, and buckets in ways planner tools must not guess.
Simple example:
RETURN radians(180.0) AS value
Consumer-Level Explanation
Use it before sin, cos, or tan when business data is stored in degrees. Prefer this function when the transformation is a deliberate part of the model or report, and name the derived value in a WITH stage when it will be reused.
More Detailed Explanation
radians is scalar math, so it is evaluated per row after graph patterns, procedure output, or map projections have produced values. Keep it close to the query when thresholds, ranking, and derived fields need to be auditable and reproducible.
Advanced Example
This example applies radians to a named score component after matching graph data, making the derived metric reviewable before ordering.
WITH [15.0, 30.0, 60.0] AS degree_offsets
UNWIND degree_offsets AS degrees
RETURN degrees, radians(degrees) AS radians_value, cos(radians(degrees)) AS cosine_value
Real Use Cases
- distance-from-target scoring
- numeric bucketing and normalization before
ORDER BYor aggregation - making scoring formulas visible to query review and assistant tooling
Real Limitations And Tradeoffs
- invalid numeric inputs produce null-like results rather than a repaired value
- math functions do not fix poor feature scaling; choose transformations intentionally
- nondeterministic functions such as random sampling are not appropriate for persisted decisions