Sorting

Like limiting the response, sorting is a good strategy to leverage when API design is being done. In general, what the end user will see is just a new query parameter called sort, which tells the service which fields should be used for the sorting strategy. Also, the URI may contain information about the sorting strategy, such as ascending, descending, and so on.

The value of the sort parameter is a comma-separated list of sort keys, like a map. Likewise, sort directions can be appended to each sort key pair, separated by the : character:

https://<URI>/items/sort=name,description,size

In this example, the services will sort everything based on the first key, which is name; then, the services will sort by the description field, and finally, by the size field. The supported sort directions are either asc for ascending or desc for descending:

https://<URI>/items?sort=name:asc,description,size
https://<URI>/items?sort=name:asc,description:desc,size
https://<URI>/items?sort=name:asc,description:asc,size
https://<URI>/items?sort=name,description:asc,size
https://<URI>/items?sort=name:asc,description,size:desc

A sort direction may be (optionally) given by the caller for each key. However, if it's not provided, a default will be set by the server, which is the one that's implemented by the backend service if nothing is provided through the URI.