Accurate pagination by datetime field - mysql

Question

I have a database table, for example 'items'. I have a timeline of these items, sorted by field ascended_at (datetime). I need to make a pagination api for such timeline. So, the first my version was:
HTTP GET /items/timeline?page=[PAGE_NUM]
which fires
SELECT * FROM items LIMIT 10 OFFSET [0, 10, 20, ...] ORDER BY ascended_at;
but here is the problem: when new item arrives, all pages shifts per 1 item. To avoid this, i have added from_asc_at parameter:
HTTP GET /items/timeline?page=[PAGE_NUM]&from_asc_at=123123123
which fires
SELECT * FROM items WHERE ascended_at <= [asc_at_parameter] LIMIT 10 OFFSET [0, 10, 20, ...] ORDER BY ascended_at;
but this is not accurate, because it is possible to have two items with same ascended_at, and you can see the same item in two different pages (but should not).
So, my question is: what are the possible solutions for this?
Use ID (because it is unique)? But what if it is not ordered by ID?
Any ideas more?

Answer 1

If your items IDs are auto-incremented, you could check what will be the next "autoincrement" value when retrieving items the first time (before pagination).
Store that value persistently (maybe in a session var) until the next search, and add a filter < {maximumID} to your SQL query, to improve the "result set stability" when the user paginates (all new items created between the initial search and paginations won't be retrieved).
EDIT
To handle items deletions, you will have to do "soft deletes" : do not immediately delete an item from DB, but store a deletion date in a datetime field, so that items still exist in DB for a while.
When a new search is issued, you will store in session the current server time, and add a criteria (for example date_deleted IS NULL OR date_deleted > {searchDate}), so that all the items deleted after a search will still be displayed for that specific search.
You will have to create a scheduled job to "really" delete items from DB after some delay.