Stream: implementers
Topic: Search result requirement
Peter Bernhardt (Jun 28 2017 at 17:36):
Pretty basic question. I want to know if there is a way, with a search query, to indicate to the server that you expect a particular number of results. The common use case is that I query for a patient based on a specific identifier and expect 0 or 1 results, and if there are more than one, that I consider this an error condition.
Stefan Lang (Jun 28 2017 at 19:30):
While I'm not aware of an easy way to trigger an error (in the sense of: OperationOutcome instead of a Bundle, when there's more than 1 result), others may prove me wrong.
As a first approach, I would use a profile on Bundle, constraining it to containing 0..1 Patient resources. You can validate that and use the validation result as an error indicator.
Elliot Silver (Jun 29 2017 at 22:43):
Its not exactly what you want, but you could request _count=1 and if the _next link is populated, then there is an error. That would at least prevent you getting a large result when you only expect one, and give you a simple way to check the condition.
Brian Postlethwaite (Jul 04 2017 at 04:15):
This is basically how I implement it, but I use _count=2 and check that I only got 1 (just in case the server isn't providing totals)
Last updated: Apr 12 2022 at 19:14 UTC
