Pagination
It is often necessary to paginate the results that the server returns in order to retrieve additional items because the server may not return how many items you want.
Specification
The pagination collection is placed in the root level of Request Specification, along with url, method , body and response.
Pagination directives should be placed inside the pagination collection.
mergeWithParent
Type: Boolean
Default: true
Specifies the condition to merge pagination parameters with the original request parameters or not. The default value is true, which means that all of your pagination request parameters are merged with the original request parameters.
If the value is set to false, then no parameters are merged, but instead directly used to make a pagination request.
url
Type: IML string
Specifies the URL that is called when the pagination request is executed. It overrides the original request URL no matter the value of mergeWithParent.
method
Type: IML string
Specifies the HTTP method to be used when executing the pagination request. It overrides the original request method no matter the value of mergeWithParent.
headers
Type: IML flat object
Specifies the request headers to be used when executing the pagination request. It merges with headers of the original request, overriding headers with the same name when mergeWithParent is set to true (default).
qs
Type: IML flat object
Specifies the request query string parameters to be used when executing the pagination request. It merges with query string parameters of the original request, overriding ones with the same name when mergeWithParent is set to true (default).
body
Type: Any IML type
Specifies the request body when the request method is anything but GET to be used when executing the pagination request. It overrides the original request body no matter the value ofmergeWithParent.
condition
Type: IML string or Boolean
Specifies whether to execute the pagination request or not. It has all context variables available to it like the response collection, such as body, headers, and temp . Use this to stop paginating if the server is sending you information about the number of pages or items, or if the next page is available or not.
Limits
As we cannot paginate to infinity, there are four limits on the paginated requests.
Max Request Count
... all requests performed by a single module
100
Max Pagination Request Count
... pagination requests performed by a single module
50
Max Past Record
... paginated records
3200
Max Call Timeout
... seconds
40
Examples
Total pages
The common method of pagination is to use total pages or pages count . The service gives information about how many pages of content (the total count) are available and you have to iterate over those pages.
This is a sample response from the service. The service returns some items in the Data array, TotalItems, and TotalPages metadata. The TotalPages is the one we use to set up pagination in Make.
The service accepts Page in the query string as a parameter, which tells the service which page you want to retrieve. There's no need to set some temporary variables. Send {{pagination.page}} in the correct query parameter and set the condition so the pagination directive knows when to stop requesting more pages.
Some services index pages from 0, and some index from 1. The pagination.page directive indexes pages from 1. Verify this information to set up the pagination correctly.
Limit - offset
This is another common way to implement pagination. Set the paging cursor using two parameters:
limit- sets the maximum amount of records being retrieved per pageoffset- sets the number of skipped records from the beginning of the data set
Use two parameters to control the pagination.
The service doesn't need to return any pagination information to you. The service may return PageSize , for example, but that is not relevant in this case.
Note that the limit parameter is set statically in the query string for a request. It represents the size of a page.
Inside the pagination directive, we'll set the offset parameter.
After the first request, the value of pagination.page will be 2, as it's prepared to retrieve a second page. We transform it to the offset we want. pagination.page - 1 = 1 and 1 * 100 is 100. The value for computing the offset is the same as in the limit parameter.
The second request will have limit: 100 and offset: 100, so it will skip first 100 records and retrieve records 101-200. The third request will skip first 200 (as (3-1)*100 = 200) and retrieve records 201-300. And so on.
The pagination stops automatically after the response with 0 records or once the condition response.limit is met. If that behavior does not fit your needs, you can specify the additional condition.
Next page token
The next page token is a unique identifier of a next page that is provided in the response. You can get the next page without counting some pages or offsets using this token only. Sometimes the "Next page URL" is provided instead of only the token, but the flow is quite similar.
The service returns a nextPageToken for retrieving the next page.
In every following request, use the nextPageToken provided with the previous one. Stop the pagination when no other nextPageToken is received.
Next page URL
The next page URL is a link to the next page that is provided in the response.
If the next page URL is provided, you can map it directly in the pagination directive.
Has more items
When using this method, you get information on whether the data set contains more records or not.
The service returns a has_more_items Boolean which tells you if you can get more pages or not.
Continue to ask for the next page until the has_more_items becomes false. When that happens, no records can be retrieved.
Page only
This type of pagination isn't ideal, but some services use this. With this method, you continue to ask for the next page until you get an empty response.
No additional info about pagination is provided.
Continue to ask for the next page until the body (or some key in the body) is not empty.
The pagination should stop after an empty response or empty data in the body. But some services think that it's a good practice to keep returning the last page after the maximum amount of pages has been reached. Always check the behavior of the service when using this type of pagination.
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