---
title: Paging and ordering collections
description: PingOne supports cursor-based pagination to return large collections in consumable pages. When an operation supports pagination, the following conventions are used:
component: pingone-api
page_id: pingone-api:platform:reference/paging-ordering-collections
canonical_url: https://developer.pingidentity.com/pingone-api/platform/reference/paging-ordering-collections.html
section_ids:
  pagination: Pagination
  ordering-collections: Ordering collections
---

# Paging and ordering collections

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| - | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
|   | Not all management API endpoints support paging and ordering of collections data returned by `GET` requests. |

## Pagination

PingOne supports cursor-based pagination to return large collections in consumable pages. When an operation supports pagination, the following conventions are used:

* Page limits

  Page limits are requested using the `limit` query string. If the `limit` parameter value is omitted, the operation returns the lesser of the service-defined maximum page size or the number of items in the collection.

  |   |                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          |
  | - | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
  |   | For some requests, supported limits are not always honored. For example, the page size limit of 200 for the `/environments/{{envID}}/users` endpoint result may be smaller. When determining the number of records returned per page, use the page size in the response rather than the requested limit. |

* Self, next, and previous links

  The response body includes a `self` link in the `_links` object. If there are more pages available, the response includes a `next` link in the `_links` object. If there are previous pages of results available, the response includes a `prev` link in the `_links` object.

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  | - | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
  |   | To get the next or previous set of pages, follow the `next` or `prev` link, then using the same access token, run another GET request using the the `next` or `prev` link as the URL. |

* Multiple pages

  If there is more than one page, the response returns a URL-safe cursor in the `cursor` query string parameter for the `next` or `prev` links.

* Response metadata

  The response can include the following metadata about the results in the body of the payload:

  * `count` (optional).

    Describes the number of items in the collection or result set (such as the total item count). If a response does not return a `count` attribute, this usually means there are many in the result set.

  * `size` (optional).

    Describes the size of the page of results (such as the limit or service-defined maximum page size).

Here is a sample request that limits the collection returned to a maximum of 2.

```sh
GET {{apiPath}}/v1/environments/{{envID}}}/populations?limit=2 HTTP/1.1
```

Here is the response body.

```json
{
 "_links" : {
  "self" : { "href" : "https://api.pingone.com/v1/environments/{{envID}}/populations?limit=2" },
  "next" : { "href" : "https://api.pingone.com/v1/environments/{{envID}}/populations?cursor=xygdhs&limit=2" }
 },
 "count" : 50,
 "size" : 2,
 "_embedded" : {
  "populations" [
   {
    "name" : "Accounting",
    "id" : "12345-aaa-12345"
   },
   {
    "name" : "Engineering",
    "id" : "12345-aaa-12346"
   }
  ]
 }
}
```

## Ordering collections

The PingOne API supports ordering collection results. The following conventions are used:

* `order` query string

  The `order` query string parameter specifies the attribute used to order the results. To return a collection in descending order, prefix the attribute with a minus sign ("-"). Here is a sample of ordering on the `name` attribute in descending order:

  `https://api.pingone.com/v1/environments/{{envID}}/variables?filter=name%20co%20%22r%22&order=-name`

* Multiple column ordering

  An operation can support ordering multiple columns in the `order` parameter by separating the columns with a comma. If an operation supports multiple columns, it treats the comma as a "THEN BY" directive. For example, `order=dateTime,name` indicates that the collection is sorted by `dateTime` then by `name`.