Merge pull request #1642 from turt2live/travis/c2s/pagination

Generalize language for pagination
pull/1644/head
Travis Ralston 6 years ago committed by GitHub
commit dfe6d0d3b8
No known key found for this signature in database
GPG Key ID: 4AEE18F83AFDEB23

@ -0,0 +1 @@
Clarify and generalise the language used for describing pagination.

@ -138,9 +138,6 @@ Some requests have unique error codes:
:``M_INVALID_ROOM_STATE``:
Sent when the intial state given to the ``createRoom`` API is invalid.
:``M_BAD_PAGINATION``:
Encountered when specifying bad pagination query parameters.
:``M_THREEPID_IN_USE``:
Sent when a threepid given to an API cannot be used because the same threepid is already in use.
@ -1018,39 +1015,21 @@ Pagination is the process of dividing a dataset into multiple discrete pages.
Matrix makes use of pagination to allow clients to view extremely large datasets.
These datasets are not limited to events in a room (for example clients may want
to paginate a list of rooms in addition to events within those rooms). Regardless
of *what* is being paginated, there is a common underlying API which is used to
to give clients a consistent way of selecting subsets of a potentially changing
dataset. Requests pass in ``from``, ``to``, ``dir`` and ``limit`` parameters
which describe where to read from the stream. ``from`` and ``to`` are opaque
textual 'stream tokens' which describe the current position in the dataset.
The ``dir`` parameter is an enum representing the direction of events to return:
either ``f`` orwards or ``b`` ackwards. The response returns new ``start`` and
``end`` stream token values which can then be passed to subsequent requests to
continue pagination. Not all endpoints will make use of all the parameters
outlined here: see the specific endpoint in question for more information.
Pagination Request Query Parameters
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Query parameters:
from:
$streamtoken - The opaque token to start streaming from.
to:
$streamtoken - The opaque token to end streaming at. Typically,
clients will not know the item of data to end at, so this will usually be
omitted.
limit:
integer - An integer representing the maximum number of items to
return.
dir:
f|b - The direction to return events in. Typically this is ``b`` to paginate
backwards in time.
'START' and 'END' are placeholder values used in these examples to describe the
start and end of the dataset respectively.
Unless specified, the default pagination parameters are ``from=START``,
``to=END``, without a limit set.
of what is being paginated, there is a common approach which is used to give
clients an easy way of selecting subsets of a potentially changing dataset. Each
endpoint that uses pagination may use different parameters. However the theme
among them is that they take a ``from`` and ``to`` token, and occasionally
a ``limit`` and ``dir``. Together, these parameters describe the position in a
data set, where ``from`` and ``to`` are known as "stream tokens" matching the
regular expression ``[a-zA-Z0-9.=_-]+``. If supported, the ``dir`` defines the
direction of events to return: either forwards (``f``) or backwards (``b``).
The response may contain tokens that can be used for retrieving results before
or after the returned set. These tokens may be called `start` or `prev_batch`
for retrieving the previous result set, or `end`, `next_batch` or `next_token`
for retrieving the next result set.
In the following examples, 'START' and 'END' are placeholders to signify the
start and end of the data sets respectively.
For example, if an endpoint had events E1 -> E15. The client wants the last 5
events and doesn't know any previous events::
@ -1067,8 +1046,8 @@ events and doesn't know any previous events::
Another example: a public room list has rooms R1 -> R17. The client is showing 5
rooms at a time on screen, and is on page 2. They want to
now show page 3 (rooms R11 -> 15)::
rooms at a time on screen, and is on page 2. They want to now show page 3 (rooms
R11 -> 15)::
S E
| 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 | stream token
@ -1086,20 +1065,17 @@ token from the initial request was '9' which corresponded to R10. When the 2nd
request was made, R10 did not appear again, even though from=9 was specified. If
you know the token, you already have the data.
Pagination Response
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Responses to pagination requests MUST follow the format::
{
"chunk": [ ... , Responses , ... ],
"start" : $streamtoken,
"end" : $streamtoken
}
Where $streamtoken is an opaque token which can be used in another query to
get the next set of results. The "start" and "end" keys can only be omitted if
the complete dataset is provided in "chunk".
Responses for pagination-capable endpoints SHOULD have a ``chunk`` array alongside
the applicable stream tokens to represent the result set.
In general, when the end of a result set is reached the applicable stream token
will be excluded from the response. For example, if a user was backwards-paginating
events in a room they'd eventually reach the first event in the room. In this scenario,
the ``prev_batch`` token would be excluded from the response. Some paginated
endpoints are open-ended in one direction, such as endpoints which expose an event
stream for an active room. In this case, it is not possible for the client to reach
the true "end" of the data set and therefore should always be presented with a token
to keep moving forwards.
.. _`filter`:

Loading…
Cancel
Save