Pagination

API Platform Core has native support for paged collections. Pagination is enabled by default for all collections. Each collections contains 30 items per page. The activation of the pagination and the number of elements per page can be configured from:

• the server-side (globally or per resource)
• the client-side, via a custom GET parameter (disabled by default)

When issuing a GET request on a collection containing more than 1 page (here /books), a Hydra collection is returned. It’s a valid JSON(-LD) document containing items of the requested page and metadata.

{
  "@context": "/contexts/Book",
  "@id": "/books",
  "@type": "hydra:Collection",
  "hydra:member": [
    {
      "@id": "/books/1",
      "@type": "http://schema.org/Book",
      "name": "My awesome book"
    },
    {
        "_": "Other items in the collection..."
    },
  ],
  "hydra:totalItems": 50,
  "hydra:view": {
    "@id": "/books?page=1",
    "@type": "hydra:PartialCollectionView",
    "hydra:first": "/books?page=1",
    "hydra:last": "/books?page=2",
    "hydra:next": "/books?page=2"
  }
}

Hypermedia links to the first, the last, previous and the next page in the collection are displayed as well as the number of total items in the collection.

The name of the page parameter can be changed with the following configuration:

# app/config/config.yml
api_platform:
    collection:
        pagination:
            page_parameter_name: _page

Paginating collections is generally accepted as a good practice. It allows browsing large collections without too much overhead as well as preventing DOS attacks. However, for small collections, it can be convenient to fully disable the pagination.

The pagination can be disabled for all resources using this configuration:

# app/config/config.yml
api_platform:
    collection:
        pagination:
            enabled: false

It can also be disabled for specific resource:

<?php
// src/AppBundle/Entity/Book.php

use ApiPlatform\Core\Annotation\ApiResource;

/**
 * @ApiResource(attributes={"pagination_enabled"=false})
 */
class Book
{
    // ...
}

You can configure API Platform Core to let the client enable or disable the pagination. To activate this feature globally, use the following configuration:

# app/config/config.yml
api_platform:
    collection:
        pagination:
            client_enabled: true
            enabled_parameter_name: pagination # optional

The pagination can now be enabled or disabled by adding a query parameter named pagination:

• GET /books?pagination=false: disabled
• GET /books?pagination=true: enabled

Any value accepted by the FILTER_VALIDATE_BOOLEAN filter can be used as the value.

The client ability to disable the pagination can also be set in the resource configuration:

<?php
// src/AppBundle/Entity/Book.php

use ApiPlatform\Core\Annotation\ApiResource;

/**
 * @ApiResource(attributes={"pagination_client_enabled"=true})
 */
class Book
{
    // ...
}

In the same manner, the number of items per page is configurable and can be set client-side.

The number of items per page can be configured for all resources:

# app/config/config.yml
api_platform:
    collection:
        pagination:
            items_per_page: 30 # Default value

<?php
// src/AppBundle/Entity/Book.php

use ApiPlatform\Core\Annotation\ApiResource;

/**
 * @ApiResource(attributes={"pagination_items_per_page"=30})
 */
class Book
{
    // ...
}

# app/config/config.yml
api_platform:
    collection:
        pagination:
            client_items_per_page: true # Disabled by default
            items_per_page_parameter_name: itemsPerPage # Default value

The number of items per page can now be changed adding a query parameter named itemsPerPage: GET /books?itemsPerPage=20

Changing the number of items per page can be enabled (or disabled) for a specific resource:

<?php
// src/AppBundle/Entity/Book.php

use ApiPlatform\Core\Annotation\ApiResource;

/**
 * @ApiResource(attributes={"pagination_client_items_per_page"=true})
 */
class Book
{
    // ...
}