totalitems

TotalItems is a metadata value used in data services and APIs to indicate the total number of items available for a given query or collection. In the context of pagination, totalItems represents the complete count of resources that satisfy the request’s criteria, across all pages, not just the subset returned on the current page. Some APIs also expose distinct counts for filtered versus unfiltered data, or for different scopes of the same endpoint.

In practice, totalItems is commonly returned alongside a page of items. A typical REST response might include fields such as totalItems, page, pageSize, and items, for example: { totalItems: 1234, page: 1, pageSize: 20, items: [ ... ] }. Clients can use totalItems to compute totalPages and to render progress indicators or navigation controls. In GraphQL and other query languages, totalItems may appear as a separate field in the response or as part of a connection's pageInfo.

Performance and consistency considerations are important. Calculating totalItems can be expensive on large datasets, especially if it requires a full scan. Some systems return an estimated count or perform a count query on demand. Because data can change during retrieval, totalItems may be slightly out of date if updates occur concurrently.

Naming conventions vary; totalItems is often seen as totalItems, totalCount, or totalResults. Clear documentation of semantics is essential, including whether the count reflects all matching records, only those after a filter, or only those currently accessible.