ElementAPI: How to order and/or limit results?

Question

Currently collaborating on a site with another developer, which is using ElementAPI pretty heavily for content delivery.

Is there a way to limit the number of returns on any given json feed? Say; only return the 10 most recent entries in any given channel? Or order the returned data by a specified field asc/desc?

A sample code:

'trucks.json' => [
  'elementType' => 'Entry',
  'criteria' => ['section' => 'trucks'],
  'paginate' => false,
  'transformer' => function(EntryModel $entry) {
    return [
      (int)$entry->id,
      $entry->manufacturer,

Answer 1

This should do the trick:

'criteria' => [
    'section' => 'trucks',
    'limit'   => 10,
    'order'   => 'title asc',
]

The Element Criteria Model documentation has more information about setting criteria.

Update for Craft 3.x*

The “order” element query param has been deprecated. Use “orderBy” instead.

* Craft v3.0.11 reports this in the /admin under deprecation errors

Answer 2

Just setting the limit property doesn’t do the trick alone, you need to deactivate pagination, too:

'criteria' => [
    'section' => 'trucks',
    'limit'   => 10,
    'orderBy'   => 'title asc',
],
'paginate' => false,