A city utilities dashboard pages Meraki device inventory for every district pump house. The API returns items and a next link but never a grand total. The developer’s loop waits until a count field appears before fetching more pages. What should the consumer do instead?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Think of a museum tour that hands you the next gallery card instead of a total room count. You keep walking while next exists. A missing grand total is optional metadata, not a reason to freeze the loop.
Full Explanation
Many REST collection APIs paginate with next, cursor, or page-length signals and never expose a total count. A consumer that refuses to continue until count is present never finishes constructing the application. Construction should walk the next pointer (or equivalent) until the API signals completion. Treating total as a prerequisite confuses optional metadata with the paging contract.