How to implement pagination in Rust REST API

Use the Query extractor with a serde::Deserialize struct to parse page and per_page parameters directly in your handler.

use axum::{extract::Query, routing::get, Router};
use serde::Deserialize;

#[derive(Deserialize)]
struct Pagination {
    page: usize,
    per_page: usize,
}

async fn list_items(pagination: Query<Pagination>) {
    let page = pagination.0.page;
    let per_page = pagination.0.per_page;
    // Fetch and return paginated data here
}

let app = Router::new().route("/items", get(list_items));

Pagination breaks a large list of data into smaller, manageable chunks called pages. This prevents your API from crashing when trying to send thousands of items at once. Think of it like reading a book one chapter at a time instead of trying to read the whole thing in a single breath.