Use of manual pagination "$perPage" parameter - php

Question

So I've been working on a pagination system that pulls data externally, after finally figuring out through trial and error I got the solution that works. While going through it something struck me as odd, as per the documentation $paginator = Paginator::make($items, $totalItems, $perPage);
I was wondering what's the actual use of the $perPage parameter? You would think that what ever number is specified would show that many items. But with manual pagination you have to limit the results that are passed into $items in order for it to work, otherwise you get the output of all items (as shown in code block below). Is manual pagination flawed? because if $perPage doesn't match the total number of items in the array $items it shows everything.
Example: Paginator::make( array('10xarray') ), 10, 2); it would show 5 pages with 2 items per page? where in reality it actually shows 10 items with 5 pages that all show the same 10 items.
<?php
class MainController extends BaseController {
public function library()
{
$this->layout->title = 'testing';
$this->layout->main = View::make('library/layout');
// Pagination data
$media = array(
array('title' => 'test'),
array('title' => 'test'),
array('title' => 'test'),
array('title' => 'test')
);
$perPage = 2;
$currentPage = Input::get('page', 1);
$pagedData = array_slice($media, ($currentPage - 1) * $perPage, $perPage);
$this->layout->main->paginated = Paginator::make($pagedData, count($media), $perPage);
if(Request::ajax()) {
return Response::json(
View::make(
'library/layout',
array('paginated' => $this->layout->main->paginated)
)->render()
);
}
}
}

Answer 1

it isn't flawed. it is intended behavior.
this manual paginator is just a container. nothing more, nothing less. how you implement it, is upon you.
without a LIMIT query, you can never do a pagination. when you use pagination(), laravel does the work under the hood. when you go for manual, you have to do it manually and get greater control.
why do you think it is called manual pagination in the first place?