Limit and paginate results

There's no limit on the amount of data you can store in DefraDB, and thus there's no limit on how many results DefraDB will return when querying it. Things can get overwhelming quite quickly – before you realize, you might drown in your own data.

The limit and offset keywords allow you to control how many records a query will return. You can combine them to create a pagination system.

Display database setup

This page assumes your database contains Book and Person collections and some documents in them:

Database schema

type Person {
  name: String!
  authoredBooks: [Book]
}

type Book {
  title: String!
  genre: String
  plot: String
  rating: Float
  author: Person
}

Person documents setup

mutation {
  a1:add_Person(input: {
    name: "George Orwell"
  }) { _docID }
  a2:add_Person(input: {
    name: "William Golding"
  }) { _docID }
  a3:add_Person(input: {
    name: "David Foster Wallace"
  }) { _docID }
  a4:add_Person(input: {
    name: "Victor Hugo"
  }) { _docID }
}

Book documents setup

mutation {
  b11:add_Book(input: {
    title: "1984",
    genre: "Fiction",
    plot: "A masterpiece of rebellion and imprisonment where war is peace, freedom is slavery, and Big Brother is watching.",
    rating: 4.20,
    _authorID: "bae-3517d1eb-351b-5231-8387-870893ffb395"
  }) {
    _docID
    title
  }
  b12:add_Book(input: {
    title: "Down and Out in Paris and London",
    genre: "Biography",
    plot: "The adventures of a penniless British writer among the down-and-outs of two great cities.",
    rating: 4.09,
    _authorID: "bae-3517d1eb-351b-5231-8387-870893ffb395"
  }) {
    _docID
    title
  }
  b21:add_Book(input: {
    title: "Lord of the Flies",
    genre: "Fiction",
    plot: "At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys.",
    rating: 3.70,
    _authorID: "bae-78e9c7be-10b9-5673-bad2-da3341367d4b"
  }) {
    _docID
    title
  }
  b31:add_Book(input: {
    title: "Infinite Jest",
    genre: "Fiction",
    plot: "A gargantuan, mind-altering tragi-comedy about the Pursuit of Happiness in America.",
    rating: 4.25
    _authorID: "bae-b59928dc-fd05-5fb7-aea2-9b24af5ebcea"
  }) {
    _docID
    title
  }
  b32:add_Book(input: {
    title: "Consider the Lobster and Other Essays",
    genre: "Nonfiction",
    plot: "Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a funny bone? What is John Updike's deal, anyway? And what happens when adult video starlets meet their fans in person? Essays that are also enthralling narrative adventures.",
    rating: 4.18,
    _authorID: "bae-b59928dc-fd05-5fb7-aea2-9b24af5ebcea"
  }) {
    _docID
    title
  }
  b41:add_Book(input: {
    title: "Les Misérables",
    genre: "Fiction",
    plot: "Victor Hugo's tale of injustice, heroism and love follows the fortunes of Jean Valjean, an escaped convict determined to put his criminal past behind him.",
    rating: 4.21,
    _authorID: "bae-c169e917-df52-5603-9224-39c1757f1b04"
  }) {
    _docID
    title
  }
}

Limit results (limit)

With the limit keyword you can specify the maximum number of records to return from a query's result set.

Get the 3 top-rated books

{
  Book(order: { rating: DESC }, limit: 3) {
    title
    plot
    rating
  }
}

Result

{
  "data": {
    "Book": [
      {
        "plot": "A gargantuan, mind-altering tragi-comedy about the Pursuit of Happiness in America.",
        "rating": 4.25,
        "title": "Infinite Jest"
      },
      {
        "plot": "Victor Hugo's tale of injustice, heroism and love follows the fortunes of Jean Valjean, an escaped convict determined to put his criminal past behind him.",
        "rating": 4.21,
        "title": "Les Misérables"
      },
      {
        "plot": "A masterpiece of rebellion and imprisonment where war is peace, freedom is slavery, and Big Brother is watching.",
        "rating": 4.2,
        "title": "1984"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Skip results (offset)

With the offset keyword you can specify how many records to be skipped in the result set. The database will return records after the given offset number.

Get the 3 top-rated books after the first 2

{
  Book(order: { rating: DESC }, limit: 3, offset: 2) {
    title
    plot
    rating
  }
}

Result

{
  "data": {
    "Book": [
      {
        "plot": "A masterpiece of rebellion and imprisonment where war is peace, freedom is slavery, and Big Brother is watching.",
        "rating": 4.2,
        "title": "1984"
      },
      {
        "plot": "Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a funny bone? What is John Updike's deal, anyway? And what happens when adult video starlets meet their fans in person? Essays that are also enthralling narrative adventures.",
        "rating": 4.18,
        "title": "Consider the Lobster and Other Essays"
      },
      {
        "plot": "The adventures of a penniless British writer among the down-and-outs of two great cities.",
        "rating": 4.09,
        "title": "Down and Out in Paris and London"
      }
    ]
  }
}