API pagination best practices

by

I’m not completely sure how your data is handled, so this may or may not work, but have you considered paginating with a timestamp field?

When you query /foos you get 100 results. Your API should then return something like this (assuming JSON, but if it needs XML the same principles can be followed):

{
    "data" : [
        {  data item 1 with all relevant fields    },
        {  data item 2   },
        ...
        {  data item 100 }
    ],
    "paging":  {
        "previous":  "http://api.example.com/foo?since=TIMESTAMP1" 
        "next":  "http://api.example.com/foo?since=TIMESTAMP2"
    }

}

Just a note, only using one timestamp relies on an implicit ‘limit’ in your results. You may want to add an explicit limit or also use an until property.

The timestamp can be dynamically determined using the last data item in the list. This seems to be more or less how Facebook paginates in its Graph API (scroll down to the bottom to see the pagination links in the format I gave above).

One problem may be if you add a data item, but based on your description it sounds like they would be added to the end (if not, let me know and I’ll see if I can improve on this).

More Related Contents:

  1. What are best practices for REST nested resources?
  2. What is the proper REST response code for a valid request but an empty data?
  3. Pagination in a REST web application
  4. When do I use path params vs. query params in a RESTful API?
  5. Delete multiple records using REST
  6. Call a Server-side Method on a Resource in a RESTful Way
  7. SOAP vs REST (differences)
  8. How can I handle many-to-many relationships in a RESTful API?
  9. How to version REST URIs
  10. XDebug and RESTful server using PHPStorm or POSTman
  11. REST Complex/Composite/Nested Resources [closed]
  12. What is the advantage of using REST instead of non-REST HTTP?
  13. What is REST? Slightly confused [closed]
  14. powershell invoke-restmethod multipart/form-data
  15. Transactions across REST microservices?
  16. Designing URI for current logged in user in REST applications
  17. RESTful Services – WSDL Equivalent
  18. How to send a message successfully using the new Gmail REST API?
  19. Rest Standard: Path parameters or Request parameters
  20. Making a PowerShell POST request if a body param starts with ‘@’
  21. Does Karate DSL Framework have the capability to pass a POST Request as a url encoded format?
  22. Is That REST API Really RPC? Roy Fielding Seems to Think So
  23. Flutter fetched Japanese character from server decoded wrong
  24. HTTP PATCH support in browsers
  25. VSTS use API to set build parameters at queue time
  26. Can I change the headers of the HTTP request sent by the browser?
  27. When in my REST API should I use an envelope? If I use it in one place, should I always use it?
  28. Swagger UI passing authentication token to API call in header
  29. Hyphen, underscore, or camelCase as word delimiter in URIs?
  30. REST API DESIGN – Getting a resource through REST with different parameters but same url pattern

Leave a Comment