How to open multiple URLs with cURL without delay - php

Question

I was wondering if it's possible to open multiple URLs with cURL or maybe something else.
I tried this until now.
$urls = array(
"http://google.com",
"http://youtube.com",
);
foreach($urls as $url) {
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, false);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT,0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT_MS, 200);
curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
}
The 200ms are there to let the site open fully.
Maybe you know any alternatives.
Is it possible to open multiple URLs in PHP at the same time? Not client sided, server side.

Answer 1

Your solution would be simultaneous cURL HTTP requests.
For faster implementation, you can use this function (thanks to phpied):
function multiRequest($data, $options = array()) {
// array of curl handles
$curly = array();
// data to be returned
$result = array();
// multi handle
$mh = curl_multi_init();
// loop through $data and create curl handles
// then add them to the multi-handle
foreach ($data as $id => $d) {
$curly[$id] = curl_init();
$url = (is_array($d) && !empty($d['url'])) ? $d['url'] : $d;
curl_setopt($curly[$id], CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($curly[$id], CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt($curly[$id], CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
// post?
if (is_array($d)) {
if (!empty($d['post'])) {
curl_setopt($curly[$id], CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($curly[$id], CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $d['post']);
}
}
// extra options?
if (!empty($options)) {
curl_setopt_array($curly[$id], $options);
}
curl_multi_add_handle($mh, $curly[$id]);
}
// execute the handles
$running = null;
do {
curl_multi_exec($mh, $running);
} while($running > 0);
// get content and remove handles
foreach($curly as $id => $c) {
$result[$id] = curl_multi_getcontent($c);
curl_multi_remove_handle($mh, $c);
}
// all done
curl_multi_close($mh);
return $result;
}
And use it like this:
$data = array(
'http://search.yahooapis.com/VideoSearchService/V1/videoSearch?appid=YahooDemo&query=Pearl+Jam&output=json',
'http://search.yahooapis.com/ImageSearchService/V1/imageSearch?appid=YahooDemo&query=Pearl+Jam&output=json',
'http://search.yahooapis.com/AudioSearchService/V1/artistSearch?appid=YahooDemo&artist=Pearl+Jam&output=json'
);
$r = multiRequest($data);
echo '<pre>';
print_r($r);
Hope it helps.
Also read this.