Two Ways to Specify Where the Next Page Starts
There are two pagination methods: offset-based and cursor-based. Offset-based pagination tracks position by a row count — ?offset=20&limit=10 skips the first 20 rows and returns the next 10.
Cursor-based pagination tracks position by a pointer to the last row already seen, like ?cursor=eyJpZCI6MzB9, and returns the next rows after that pointer.
If a new row is inserted before the current offset while a client is paging through with offset, every row after it shifts by one position, so the client can see a duplicate or skip a row entirely. A cursor doesn't shift, because it points at a specific row rather than counting from the start.
Explain how offset and cursor pagination each track position, and why an insertion between page requests shifts an offset-based page but not a cursor-based one.
A client is on page 2 of offset pagination when a new row is inserted at the very front of the dataset. What happens to page 2's results on the next request?