Varying result size per in calls

[malik_aditya]

I am using AppSearch and the requirement is to fetch varying result sizes per call. Like on first call I need three records and on each successive calls I need 6 records. I checked documentation and there is no facility similar to elasticsearch's "from & size". Is there any way to accomplish it directly via AppSearch API?

[Irina_Truong]

Hi Malik,

You do have the ability to vary page.size and page.current when querying vis Search API:

Search guide | Elastic App Search Documentation [7.11] | Elastic

However, to achieve exactly what you're asking may not be very straightforward, because page.current is not the same as variable offset. In your case, if you want 3 records first, and then 6 on each subsequent request, you may have to do something odd, like:

1. Request 6 records every time, but first time, your application would display the "head" of 3, and keep the "tail" of 3 to tuck on top of page 2. Then, the "tail" of every page would be treated the same, and tucked on top of next page. I have a headache just thinking about it.
2. You could try using multi_search endpoint to achieve this:

Multi search API | Elastic App Search Documentation [7.11] | Elastic

In your first query, you'd request 1 page of size 3:

curl -s -X GET 'https://localhost/api/as/v1/engines/national-parks-demo/multi_search' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-H 'Authorization: Bearer xxxxxx' \
-d '{
  "queries": [
    {"query": "park", "page": {"size": 3, "current": 1}}
  ]
}'

In your subsequent query, you'd request page 2 and 3 of size 3:

curl -s -X GET 'https://localhost/api/as/v1/engines/national-parks-demo/multi_search' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-H 'Authorization: Bearer xxxxxx' \
-d '{
  "queries": [
    {"query": "park", "page": {"size": 3, "current": 2}},
    {"query": "park", "page": {"size": 3, "current": 3}}
  ]
}'

and so on. You'd have to concatenate results from these 2 queries for display.

I hope this helps! The requirement to display records in this manner is pretty unusual. I would advise, if possible, to just stick with regular pagination, with all pages being of the same size.

[malik_aditya]

Thanks for the help. I believe Multi_search could help with this use-case. Totally agree that a regular pagination is the best approach and will try to see if the requirements could be updated.