using curl within foreach loop optimization?

Question

Is it bad practice or will it be slower if I use curl within a foreach loop?

I'm planning on having an autocomplete input field, and the query in the input would be sent to an API call.

I'm getting an id from a certain link (ie: http://api.linke1.com/names)

foreach($json as j){

    $id = $j->id; //from http://api.linke1.com/names

    $url = "https://api.site/{$id}/photos";
    $ch = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
    $output = curl_exec($ch);
    curl_close($ch);    

    $jsonDecode = json_decode($output);
    $results = $jsonDecode->results;
    foreach($results as $result)
    {   
            $photoURL= $result->photo->url; //from https://api.site/{$id}/photos
    }
}

So every time I type in a name, it will go into the foreach searching for an id from http://api.linke1.com/names, and then it will look for the photo url from the other link. I wanted to output a list of an array, so eventually i'll have a list of data to output showing information such as name, photo, etc...

Will this slow down dramatically because each letter typed in the input field it will run through this foreach loop. Would there be an easier way?

Thanks!

Is there no way to retrieve all of this information in a single request? As a general rule, performing expensive operations (and requesting data over the internet is definitely an expensive operation) while inside a loop is a bad idea. — anon
– anon, Commented Jan 20, 2013 at 8:08
The loop in your question looks superfluous. You would best optimize it, by not having the outer foreach. The inner foreach is also looking fishy, you probably want to break it in the first iteration. Apart from that, please only ask about concrete not hypothetical problems. Yes it can be wrong, however as it looks now, it does not even work. First get it to work, then optimize it. — hakre
– hakre, Commented Jan 20, 2013 at 8:08

Community · Accepted Answer · 2023-11-17 20:16:56Z

1

Initialize the curl and the things that doesn't change before the loop and close it afterwards.

That will speed up the thing a little bit.

and you can use curl_multi_*, which can fetch several URLs in parallel.

https://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.curl.php

edited Nov 17, 2023 at 20:16

CommunityBot

11 silver badge

answered Jan 20, 2013 at 8:06

Muqito

1,4093 gold badges14 silver badges28 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

3 Comments

Ayush Over a year ago

Alternatively, he could just use file_get_contents() since it's a simple GET request.

Muqito Over a year ago

@xbonez A curl-request is faster.

Muqito Over a year ago

@xbonez Yup, they cover the question here: stackoverflow.com/questions/555523/…

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

using curl within foreach loop optimization?

1 Answer 1

3 Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

3 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related