Read Heroes with Limit and Offset with FastAPI¶
When a client sends a request to get all the heroes, we have been returning them all.
But if we had thousands of heroes that could consume a lot of computational resources, network bandwidth, etc.
So, we probably want to limit it.
Let's use the same offset and limit we learned about in the previous tutorial chapters for the API.
Info
In many cases, this is also called pagination.
Add a Limit and Offset to the Query Parameters¶
Let's add limit and offset to the query parameters.
By default, we will return the first results from the database, so offset will have a default value of 0.
And by default, we will return a maximum of 100 heroes, so limit will have a default value of 100.
from fastapi import FastAPI, HTTPException, Query
from sqlmodel import Field, Session, SQLModel, create_engine, select
# Code here omitted 👈
@app.get("/heroes/", response_model=list[HeroPublic])
def read_heroes(offset: int = 0, limit: int = Query(default=100, le=100)):
with Session(engine) as session:
heroes = session.exec(select(Hero).offset(offset).limit(limit)).all()
return heroes
# Code below omitted 👇
from typing import Optional
from fastapi import FastAPI, HTTPException, Query
from sqlmodel import Field, Session, SQLModel, create_engine, select
# Code here omitted 👈
@app.get("/heroes/", response_model=list[HeroPublic])
def read_heroes(offset: int = 0, limit: int = Query(default=100, le=100)):
with Session(engine) as session:
heroes = session.exec(select(Hero).offset(offset).limit(limit)).all()
return heroes
# Code below omitted 👇
from typing import List, Optional
from fastapi import FastAPI, HTTPException, Query
from sqlmodel import Field, Session, SQLModel, create_engine, select
# Code here omitted 👈
@app.get("/heroes/", response_model=List[HeroPublic])
def read_heroes(offset: int = 0, limit: int = Query(default=100, le=100)):
with Session(engine) as session:
heroes = session.exec(select(Hero).offset(offset).limit(limit)).all()
return heroes
# Code below omitted 👇
👀 Full file preview
from fastapi import FastAPI, HTTPException, Query
from sqlmodel import Field, Session, SQLModel, create_engine, select
class HeroBase(SQLModel):
name: str = Field(index=True)
secret_name: str
age: int | None = Field(default=None, index=True)
class Hero(HeroBase, table=True):
id: int | None = Field(default=None, primary_key=True)
class HeroCreate(HeroBase):
pass
class HeroPublic(HeroBase):
id: int
sqlite_file_name = "database.db"
sqlite_url = f"sqlite:///{sqlite_file_name}"
connect_args = {"check_same_thread": False}
engine = create_engine(sqlite_url, echo=True, connect_args=connect_args)
def create_db_and_tables():
SQLModel.metadata.create_all(engine)
app = FastAPI()
@app.on_event("startup")
def on_startup():
create_db_and_tables()
@app.post("/heroes/", response_model=HeroPublic)
def create_hero(hero: HeroCreate):
with Session(engine) as session:
db_hero = Hero.model_validate(hero)
session.add(db_hero)
session.commit()
session.refresh(db_hero)
return db_hero
@app.get("/heroes/", response_model=list[HeroPublic])
def read_heroes(offset: int = 0, limit: int = Query(default=100, le=100)):
with Session(engine) as session:
heroes = session.exec(select(Hero).offset(offset).limit(limit)).all()
return heroes
@app.get("/heroes/{hero_id}", response_model=HeroPublic)
def read_hero(hero_id: int):
with Session(engine) as session:
hero = session.get(Hero, hero_id)
if not hero:
raise HTTPException(status_code=404, detail="Hero not found")
return hero
from typing import Optional
from fastapi import FastAPI, HTTPException, Query
from sqlmodel import Field, Session, SQLModel, create_engine, select
class HeroBase(SQLModel):
name: str = Field(index=True)
secret_name: str
age: Optional[int] = Field(default=None, index=True)
class Hero(HeroBase, table=True):
id: Optional[int] = Field(default=None, primary_key=True)
class HeroCreate(HeroBase):
pass
class HeroPublic(HeroBase):
id: int
sqlite_file_name = "database.db"
sqlite_url = f"sqlite:///{sqlite_file_name}"
connect_args = {"check_same_thread": False}
engine = create_engine(sqlite_url, echo=True, connect_args=connect_args)
def create_db_and_tables():
SQLModel.metadata.create_all(engine)
app = FastAPI()
@app.on_event("startup")
def on_startup():
create_db_and_tables()
@app.post("/heroes/", response_model=HeroPublic)
def create_hero(hero: HeroCreate):
with Session(engine) as session:
db_hero = Hero.model_validate(hero)
session.add(db_hero)
session.commit()
session.refresh(db_hero)
return db_hero
@app.get("/heroes/", response_model=list[HeroPublic])
def read_heroes(offset: int = 0, limit: int = Query(default=100, le=100)):
with Session(engine) as session:
heroes = session.exec(select(Hero).offset(offset).limit(limit)).all()
return heroes
@app.get("/heroes/{hero_id}", response_model=HeroPublic)
def read_hero(hero_id: int):
with Session(engine) as session:
hero = session.get(Hero, hero_id)
if not hero:
raise HTTPException(status_code=404, detail="Hero not found")
return hero
from typing import List, Optional
from fastapi import FastAPI, HTTPException, Query
from sqlmodel import Field, Session, SQLModel, create_engine, select
class HeroBase(SQLModel):
name: str = Field(index=True)
secret_name: str
age: Optional[int] = Field(default=None, index=True)
class Hero(HeroBase, table=True):
id: Optional[int] = Field(default=None, primary_key=True)
class HeroCreate(HeroBase):
pass
class HeroPublic(HeroBase):
id: int
sqlite_file_name = "database.db"
sqlite_url = f"sqlite:///{sqlite_file_name}"
connect_args = {"check_same_thread": False}
engine = create_engine(sqlite_url, echo=True, connect_args=connect_args)
def create_db_and_tables():
SQLModel.metadata.create_all(engine)
app = FastAPI()
@app.on_event("startup")
def on_startup():
create_db_and_tables()
@app.post("/heroes/", response_model=HeroPublic)
def create_hero(hero: HeroCreate):
with Session(engine) as session:
db_hero = Hero.model_validate(hero)
session.add(db_hero)
session.commit()
session.refresh(db_hero)
return db_hero
@app.get("/heroes/", response_model=List[HeroPublic])
def read_heroes(offset: int = 0, limit: int = Query(default=100, le=100)):
with Session(engine) as session:
heroes = session.exec(select(Hero).offset(offset).limit(limit)).all()
return heroes
@app.get("/heroes/{hero_id}", response_model=HeroPublic)
def read_hero(hero_id: int):
with Session(engine) as session:
hero = session.get(Hero, hero_id)
if not hero:
raise HTTPException(status_code=404, detail="Hero not found")
return hero
We want to allow clients to set different offset and limit values.
But we don't want them to be able to set a limit of something like 9999, that's over 9000! 😱
So, to prevent it, we add additional validation to the limit query parameter, declaring that it has to be less than or equal to 100 with le=100.
This way, a client can decide to take fewer heroes if they want, but not more.
Info
If you need to refresh how query parameters and their validation work, check out the docs in FastAPI:
Check the Docs UI¶
Now we can see that the docs UI shows the new parameters to control limit and offset of our data.
Recap¶
You can use FastAPI's automatic data validation to get the parameters for limit and offset, and then use them with the session to control ranges of data to be sent in responses.