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Sorting responses

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Sorting responses

Where an API returns a collection of items it often supports sorting of API responses.

Use the sort and direction query parameters to sort the collection either in ascending or descending order.

curl https://api.box.com/2.0/folders/0/items?sort=size&direction=DESC \
    -H "authorization: Bearer ACCESS_TOKEN"

Not all API endpoints that return collections have support for sorting. Especially endpoints that use marker-based pagination often lack support for sorting the results.

Sorting criteria

The field to sort on is defined by the sort query parameter. Check the API endpoint's documentation for the possible options for this value.

In some APIs the sort field is the second criteria by which the items are sorted. For example for the GET /folders/:id/items endpoint the results are always sorted by their type first before any other criteria.

Sorting direction

The sorting direction supports two values, either ASC for ascending order, or DESC for the reverse.