How to run mulitple cURL requests from API - php

Question

I'm trying to run multiple cURL requests from the Google Analytics API and wanted to see if there was another more efficient way of running the requests than having to manually build them out like below. I would need to eventually build of about 10-15 requests so looking to build something more useful in that case.
<?php
$ch1 = curl_init();
$ch2 = curl_init();
$ch3 = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch1, CURLOPT_URL, "https://www.googleapis.com/analytics/v3/data/parameters_go_here");
curl_setopt($ch2, CURLOPT_URL, "https://www.googleapis.com/analytics/v3/data/parameters_go_here");
curl_setopt($ch3, CURLOPT_URL, "https://www.googleapis.com/analytics/v3/data/parameters_go_here");
curl_exec($ch1);
curl_exec($ch2);
curl_exec($ch3);
?>

Answer 1

you can use multi-curl
$urls = array($url1, $url2, $url3);
$curl_arr = array();
$inits = curl_multi_init();
for($i = 0; $i < count($urls); $i++)
{
$url =$urls[$i];
$curl_arr[$i] = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($curl_arr[$i], CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_multi_add_handle($inits, $curl_arr[$i]);
}
do {
curl_multi_exec($inits, $running);
} while($running > 0);
for($i = 0; $i < count($urls); $i++)
{
$results[] = curl_multi_getcontent($curl_arr[$i]);
}
print_r($results);
or create function
function doCurl($url){
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch1, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_exec($ch);
}

Answer 2

Considering you're passing in different parameters each time, you do need to make separate calls to the API. Having said that, you may benefit from utilising a function() where you structure the call, and pass the parameter in as a variable:
function getData($param = "") {
$core_url = "https://www.googleapis.com/analytics/v3/data/";
$target_url = $core_url . $param;
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $target_url);
$result = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
return json_decode($result);
}
This will 'prettify' your code, allowing you to simply pass through a one word call. The following shows how you can access properties of the returned information:
getData('stats')->item; /* Calls https://www.googleapis.com/analytics/v3/data/stats */
getData('info')->item; /* Calls https://www.googleapis.com/analytics/v3/data/info */
Note that this will still result in the same amount of data being requested from the API, though provides a much cleaner way in which to call the API each time you need to.
Hope this helps! :)