Paginated / Lagged Queries

Rendering paginated data is a very common UI pattern and in TanStack Query, it "just works" by including the page information in the query key:

tsx

const result = useQuery({
  queryKey: ['projects', page],
  queryFn: fetchProjects
})

const result = useQuery({
  queryKey: ['projects', page],
  queryFn: fetchProjects
})

However, if you run this simple example, you might notice something strange:

The UI jumps in and out of the success and loading states because each new page is treated like a brand new query.

This experience is not optimal and unfortunately is how many tools today insist on working. But not TanStack Query! As you may have guessed, TanStack Query comes with an awesome feature called keepPreviousData that allows us to get around this.

Better Paginated Queries with keepPreviousData

Consider the following example where we would ideally want to increment a pageIndex (or cursor) for a query. If we were to use useQuery, it would still technically work fine, but the UI would jump in and out of the success and loading states as different queries are created and destroyed for each page or cursor. By setting keepPreviousData to true we get a few new things:

The data from the last successful fetch is available while new data is being requested, even though the query key has changed.
When the new data arrives, the previous data is seamlessly swapped to show the new data.
isPreviousData is made available to know what data the query is currently providing you

vue

<script setup lang="ts">
import { ref, Ref } from 'vue'
import { useQuery } from '@tanstack/vue-query'

const fetcher = (page: Ref<number>) =>
  fetch(
    `https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts?_page=${page.value}&_limit=10`,
  ).then((response) => response.json())

const page = ref(1)
const { isLoading, isError, data, error, isFetching, isPreviousData } =
  useQuery({
    queryKey: ['projects', page],
    queryFn: () => fetcher(page),
    keepPreviousData: true,
  })
const prevPage = () => {
  page.value = Math.max(page.value - 1, 1)
}
const nextPage = () => {
  if (!isPreviousData.value) {
    page.value = page.value + 1
  }
}
</script>

<template>
  <h1>Posts</h1>
  <p>Current Page: {{ page }} | Previous data: {{ isPreviousData }}</p>
  <button @click="prevPage">Prev Page</button>
  <button @click="nextPage">Next Page</button>
  <div v-if="isLoading">Loading...</div>
  <div v-else-if="isError">An error has occurred: {{ error }}</div>
  <div v-else-if="data">
    <ul>
      <li v-for="item in data" :key="item.id">
        {{ item.title }}
      </li>
    </ul>
  </div>
</template>

<script setup lang="ts">
import { ref, Ref } from 'vue'
import { useQuery } from '@tanstack/vue-query'

const fetcher = (page: Ref<number>) =>
  fetch(
    `https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts?_page=${page.value}&_limit=10`,
  ).then((response) => response.json())

const page = ref(1)
const { isLoading, isError, data, error, isFetching, isPreviousData } =
  useQuery({
    queryKey: ['projects', page],
    queryFn: () => fetcher(page),
    keepPreviousData: true,
  })
const prevPage = () => {
  page.value = Math.max(page.value - 1, 1)
}
const nextPage = () => {
  if (!isPreviousData.value) {
    page.value = page.value + 1
  }
}
</script>

<template>
  <h1>Posts</h1>
  <p>Current Page: {{ page }} | Previous data: {{ isPreviousData }}</p>
  <button @click="prevPage">Prev Page</button>
  <button @click="nextPage">Next Page</button>
  <div v-if="isLoading">Loading...</div>
  <div v-else-if="isError">An error has occurred: {{ error }}</div>
  <div v-else-if="data">
    <ul>
      <li v-for="item in data" :key="item.id">
        {{ item.title }}
      </li>
    </ul>
  </div>
</template>

Lagging Infinite Query results with keepPreviousData

While not as common, the keepPreviousData option also works flawlessly with the useInfiniteQuery hook, so you can seamlessly allow your users to continue to see cached data while infinite query keys change over time.

Better Paginated Queries with keepPreviousData

Lagging Infinite Query results with keepPreviousData

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