PHP + MySql Pagination with categories and no offset

Question

I'm working with online marketplace site where users can sell their own stuff and visitors can browse marketplace by categories.

I have been reading about mysql pagination that if you use limit with offset, it will use alot resources and takes long time to execute if its huge database.

So, I don't want to use "LIMIT 10000, 20" as example, only if its last choise.

If there was no categories, this would do fine "SELECT * FROM products WHERE id > 10000 LIMIT 20"

But, as there is categories for products involved, I can't use that. Lets say that first product added to category id 10 is added after there is 2000 products in whole database. That product would get ID 2001.

So if I would browse first page of category id 10, this query would run: "SELECT * FROM products WHERE catid = 10 LIMIT 20"

If I go to next page, this runs: "SELECT * FROM products WHERE catid = 10 AND id > 20 LIMIT 20"

So, basicly visitor would see product 2001 in every page until he hits page 101 when query looks for products that id is over 2020 and thats why I can't use "WHERE id > something" in query.

Long story short, whats best way to deal with pagination when working with categories and doesnt eat so much performance?

Answer 1

I think in your case, you can simply run this query for example:

"SELECT * FROM products WHERE catid = 10"

And after it returns so much row, control it in the client side using jquery datatables. https://datatables.net/

This is what I'm using currently because it's very fast. No more querying needed as you move to another page of your pagination