[Request]: v3 to v4 migration guides for code that uses service.search and controller.count

[Archvia]

Summary

In strapi v3 services have a search method that can be used like in the example code for find.
The v3 to v4 guide does not give any hints on how to migrate such code to v4, where the search function is no longer available in the Entity Service API.

Likewise, in v3 controllers have a .count function that can be routed to like so:

...
"routes": [
    {
      "method": "GET",
      "path": "/restaurants/count",
      "handler": "Restaurant.count",
      "config": {
        "policies": []
      }
    }
...

There is also no documentation on how to migrate such routes, now that controllers no longer offer the .count function.

Why is it needed?

If you have v3 code shown in the above examples you get stuck when trying to upgrade to v4 because there is no clear upgrade path.

Suggested solution(s)

It would be helpful to have clear documentation on how to migrate common code examples that use v3 features that are not present in v4 to the new version.

Related issue(s)/PR(s)

No response

[pwizla]

Thank you for creating this issue and sorry you are having trouble. We'll reach out to our engineers about this issue, and I'll keep you posted.

[Archvia]

Thank you for creating this issue and sorry you are having trouble. We'll reach out to our engineers about this issue, and I'll keep you posted.

Any news on this?

[pwizla]

Hi and apologies again it took so long to get another answer from the Strapi Documentation team. I will double-check with Strapi core engineers, but for now I'd say that counting should be handled by the Query Engine API: you could use the findWithCount() method on single operations or the count() method for bulk operations.

[Boegie19]

@pwizla just checked the code and and entityService.count() exists so I think it would make sence to document it if it is stable? what it should be for v4 but Idk about V5.

https://github.com/strapi/strapi/blob/ea26b0dc3fcf86bd07058046a8d201439e4b5f3f/packages/core/strapi/src/services/entity-service/index.ts#L187-L193

[pwizla]

Oh, great! I will do it in the next few weeks, then. Thanks, Boegie19!

[pwizla]

I'm closing this issue as we're now heavily focused on documenting the upcoming Strapi v5 and the last v4 releases.
Entity Service indeed has a count() method as mentioned by Boegie19, and in Strapi v5, the Document Service API will replace the Entity Service API and will also natively include a count method (see work-in-progress documentation here, from PR #1935)