Pagination is inconsistent for collections

[ThePlatinum]

When an api resource collection is paginated, the structure of the pagination is not consistent with if it were a query result.

From the doc: https://laravel.com/docs/11.x/pagination, pagination without resource collection does not wrap the meta information in a "metas" key as seen in this structure:

But, for resource collections, the structure is different, as the meta information about the number of pages are wrapped in "metas", even if the withoutWrapping method has been called.

Does anyone know I can make the pagination of the resource collection have same structure as the regular pagination as I need to maintain consistency in my APIs.

I am thinking of customizing the pagination information as stated here: https://laravel.com/docs/11.x/eloquent-resources#customizing-the-pagination-information, but, I fear it will still keep the meta and that will be duplication of data on the responce.

[macropay-solutions]

Hi. You can use macros to overwrite the default behavior.
https://github.com/laravel/framework/blob/11.x/src/Illuminate/Http/Resources/Json/PaginatedResourceResponse.php

    /**
     * Add the pagination information to the response.
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request  $request
     * @return array
     */
    protected function paginationInformation($request)
    {
        $paginated = $this->resource->resource->toArray();

        $default = [
            'links' => $this->paginationLinks($paginated),
            'meta' => $this->meta($paginated),
        ];

        if (method_exists($this->resource, 'paginationInformation') ||
            $this->resource->hasMacro('paginationInformation')) {
            return $this->resource->paginationInformation($request, $paginated, $default);
        }

        return $default;
    }

As you can see this is not macroable so you must check where it is called and see if it could be overwritten with custom logic.

PS. We created a restful crud lib to solve this: https://packagist.org/packages/macropay-solutions/laravel-crud-wizard-free

[ThePlatinum]

Thank you... At least now I see "How" Laravel does it, I will try to see how I can override it.

[macropay-solutions]

        if (method_exists($this->resource, 'paginationInformation')) {
            return $this->resource->paginationInformation($request, $paginated, $default);
        }

try to define this function in your resource.

as

    public function paginationInformation(\Illuminate\Http\Request $request, array $paginated, array $default): array
    {
        return array_merge(
           $paginated,
           $default['links'] ?? [],
           $default['meta'] ?? [],
        );
    }

[ThePlatinum]

it didn't work...

I also can't override the method as the JsonResource class does not directly extend the PaginatedResourceResponse.php class... I am thinking a macro on the JsonResource will work... since it uses a trait (DelegatesToResource) that is Macroable

[ThePlatinum]

Solved by writing a macro on the JsonResource class, using the defination provided by @macropay-solutions

        JsonResource::macro('paginationInformation', function ($request, $paginated, $default) {
            return array_merge(
                $paginated,
                $default['links'] ?? [],
                $default['meta'] ?? [],
            );
        });

[macropay-solutions]

It is always a good idea to have return types and typed params. Your code lacks these.

[ThePlatinum]

Yeah... Sure I will write those just sharing what worked... I am a big fan of PSRs and PERs