High performance PHP curl wrapper to make parallel HTTP calls

• Installation
• Usage
• Advanced Usage
• Documentation
  • Methods
    • addUrl
    • addCurl
    • renderAscii
  • Accessing Response
    • response
    • code
    • headers

You can use composer to install this library from the command line.

composer require jmathai/php-multi-curl:dev-master -v

Basic usage can be done using the addUrl($url/*, $options*/) method. This calls GET $url by passing in $options as the parameters.

<?php
  // Include Composer's autoload file if not already included.
  require '../vendor/autoload.php';

  // Instantiate the MultiCurl class.
  $mc = JMathai\PhpMultiCurl\MultiCurl::getInstance();

  // Make a call to a URL.
  $call1 = $mc->addUrl('http://slowapi.herokuapp.com/delay/2.0');
  // Make another call to a URL.
  $call2 = $mc->addUrl('http://slowapi.herokuapp.com/delay/1.0');

  // Access the response for $call2.
  // This blocks until $call2 is complete without waiting for $call1
  echo "Call 2: {$call2->response}\n";

  // Access the response for $call1.
  echo "Call 1: {$call1->response}\n";

  // Output a call sequence diagram to see how the parallel calls performed.
  echo $mc->getSequence()->renderAscii();

This is what the output of that code will look like.

Call 2: consequatur id est
Call 1: in maiores et
(http://slowapi.herokuapp.com/delay/2.0 ::  code=200, start=1447701285.5536, end=1447701287.9512, total=2.397534)
[====================================================================================================]
(http://slowapi.herokuapp.com/delay/1.0 ::  code=200, start=1447701285.5539, end=1447701287.0871, total=1.532997)
[================================================================                                    ]

You'll most likely want to configure your cURL calls for your specific purpose. This includes setting the call's HTTP method, parameters, headers and more. You can use the addCurl($ch) method and configuring your curl handle using any of PHP's curl_* functions.

<?php
  $mc = JMathai\PhpMultiCurl\MultiCurl::getInstance();

  // Set up your cURL handle(s).
  $ch = curl_init('http://www.google.com');
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
  
  // Add your cURL calls and begin non-blocking execution.
  $call = $mc->addCurl($ch);
  
  // Access response(s) from your cURL calls.
  $code = $call->code;

You can look at the tests/example.php file for working code and execute it from the command line.

addUrl((string) $url/*, (array) $options*/)

Makes a GET call to $url by passing the key/value array $options as parameters. This method automatically sets CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER to 1 internally.

$call = $mc->addUrl('https://www.google.com', array('q' => 'github'));
echo $call->response;

addCurl((curl handle) $ch)

Takes a curl handle $ch and executes it. This method, unlike addUrl, will not add anything to the cURL handle. You'll most likely want to set CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER yourself before passing the handle into addCurl.

$ch = curl_init('http://www.mocky.io/v2/5185415ba171ea3a00704eed');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, 'PUT');

$call = $mc->addCurl($ch);
echo $call->response;

The curl calls begin executing the moment you call addUrl or addCurl. Execution control is returned to your code immediately and blocking for the response does not occur until you access the response or code variables. The library only blocks for the call you're trying to access the response to and will allow longer running calls to continue to execute while returning control back to your code.

The response variable returns the string text of the response.

echo $call->response;

The code variable returns the integer HTTP response code of the request.

echo $call->code;

The headers variable returns an array of HTTP headers from the response.

var_dump($call->headers);

Return a string that prints out details of call latency and degree of being called in parallel. This method can be called indirectly through the multi-curl instance you're using.

echo $mc->getSequence()->renderAscii();

• jmathai

• Lewis Cowles (LewisCowles1986) - Usability for adding url's without needing to worry about CURL, but provisioning also for specifying additional parameters
• Sam Thomson (samthomson) - Packaged it up