Gremlin Snippets are typically short and fun dissections of some aspect of the Gremlin language. For a full list of all steps in the Gremlin language see the Reference Documentation of Apache TinkerPop™. This snippet is based on Gremlin 3.7.3.This snippet demonstrates its lesson using the data of the "modern" toy graph (image). Please consider bringing any discussion or questions about this snippet to Discord or the Gremlin Users Mailing List.


The repeat() step in Gremlin has some noteworthy behavior when used with times(0). Most of us intuitively expect that times(1) means “do it once” and times(0) means “skip it completely.” But depending on where you specify times(), the semantics are not quite what you might first imagine.

Consider the following Gremlin Console session:

gremlin> g.V().repeat(out().limit(1)).times(1)
==>v[3]
gremlin> g.V().repeat(out().limit(1)).times(0)
==>v[3]
gremlin> g.V().times(1).repeat(out().limit(1))
==>v[3]
gremlin> g.V().times(0).repeat(out().limit(1))
==>v[1]
==>v[2]
==>v[3]
==>v[4]
==>v[5]
==>v[6]

At first glance, times(1) behaves exactly as expected in both positions: the traversal applies the repeat once. No surprises there.

Where things get interesting is with times(0):

  • With repeat(...).times(0) - You get the same result as times(1). This is because when times() is applied after repeat(), its semantics are handled like a do/while. That is, the repeat() always executes once before the “how many times?” condition is enforced. So even though you asked for “0 times,” the traversal still enters the repeat() a first time.

  • With times(0).repeat(...) – The behavior flips. Here the traversal sees the times(0) before entering the repeat, giving it while/do semantics instead. Since the condition is “zero times,” the traverser never enters repeat(). Instead, it simply passes through unchanged. That’s why, in this case, you just get the original set of vertices back.

So the placement of times() fundamentally changes the control flow:

  • Postfix (repeat(...).times(n)) - do/while semantics (always one iteration, then check).
  • Prefix (times(n).repeat(...)) - while/do semantics (check first, then maybe iterate).

This quirk in Gremlin’s semantics isn’t a bug, but it can be surprising to discover that sometimes times(0) doesn’t actually mean “zero.”