Skip to content
Sarj Sarj Sarj Standards

no-offset-pagination

Potentially unbounded OFFSET pagination in store SQL.

SARJ025 Rule source Tests Catalog JSON

Why

Dynamic offsets may require scanning discarded rows and may skip or repeat results during concurrent writes.

Fix

Use a stable, immutable, unique ordering and a cursor predicate with the same direction; include a unique tie-breaker for non-unique sort columns. Keep OFFSET with a reasoned suppression for demonstrably bounded or static data, or an intentional random-access page contract.

Examples

Before — flagged Page selected with an offset
app/task_store.py
QUERY = "SELECT id FROM task ORDER BY id LIMIT :limit OFFSET :offset"
After — preferred Page selected with a stable composite cursor
app/task_store.py
QUERY = "SELECT id FROM task WHERE (created_at, id) < (:cursor_created_at, :cursor_id) ORDER BY created_at DESC, id DESC LIMIT :limit"