ORIGINAL COMPANY-CONTEXT PRACTICE
Paginate account activity while new postings arrive
Original practice scenario: A hypothetical banking activity screen loads transaction pages while additional postings and corrections arrive. Design pagination that does not omit or repeat records during scrolling.
Written for independent practice using company context; this is not a verified question from a company interview.
A REASONED APPROACH
Model answer.
Choose whether a browsing session represents a stable snapshot or a continuously changing view. Offset pagination over mutable data can shift records between pages as new entries appear.
Work through it
- Use a stable ordering key such as posting sequence plus unique entry identity, and bind an opaque cursor to account scope, filters and a snapshot boundary.
- Fetch subsequent pages by key range within that boundary, exposing later arrivals through an explicit refresh rather than inserting them invisibly into older pages.
- Define how corrected or reversed entries appear, authorize every page request and test equal timestamps, concurrent postings and expired cursors.
Tradeoffs to discuss
- Snapshot browsing improves consistency but temporarily hides new activity; live updates are fresher while requiring visible change handling.
Common pitfalls
- Do not rely on a timestamp alone when multiple entries can share it.
- A cursor must not permit access to another account merely because its internal identifiers are predictable.