Limiting resultset from Magento SOAP query - php

Question

How can you specify a max result set for Magento SOAP queries?
I am querying Magento via SOAP API for a list of orders matching a given status. We have some remote hosts who are taking too long to return the list so I'd like to limit the result set however I don't see a parameter for this.
$orderListRaw = $proxy -> call ( $sessionId, 'sales_order.list', array ( array ( 'status' => array ( 'in' => $orderstatusarray ) ) ) );
I was able to see that we do get data back (6 minutes later) and have been able to deal with timeouts, etc. but would prefer to just force a max result set.

Answer 1

It doesn't seem like it can be done using limit, (plus you would have to do some complex pagination logic to get all records, because you would need know the total number of records and the api does not have a method for that) See api call list # http://www.magentocommerce.com/api/soap/sales/salesOrder/sales_order.list.html
But what you could do as a work around is use complex filters, to limit the result set base on creation date. (adjust to ever hour, day or week base on order volume).
Also, since you are using status type (assuming that you are excluding more that just cancel order), you may want to think about getting all order and keep track of the order_id/status locally (only process the ones with the above status) and the remainder that wasn't proceed would be a list of order id that may need your attention later on
Pseudo Code Example
$params = array(array(
'filter' => array(
array(
'key' => 'status',
'value' => array(
'key' => 'in',
'value' => $orderstatusarray,
),
),
),
'complex_filter' => array(
array(
'key' => 'created_at',
'value' => array(
'key' => 'gteq',
'value' => '2012-11-25 12:00:00'
),
),
array(
'key' => 'created_at',
'value' => array(
'key' => 'lteq',
'value' => '2012-11-26 11:59:59'
),
),
)
));
$orderListRaw = $proxy -> call ( $sessionId, 'sales_order.list', $params);
Read more about filtering # http://www.magentocommerce.com/knowledge-base/entry/magento-for-dev-part-8-varien-data-collections