Increase CURL speed php - php

Question

I am using an API provided by flipkart.com, this allows me to search and get results output as json.
The code I am using is:
$snapword = $_GET['p'];
$snapword = str_replace(' ','+',$snapword);
$headers = array(
'Fk-Affiliate-Id: myaffid',
'Fk-Affiliate-Token: c0f74c4esometokesndad68f50666'
);
$pattern = "#\(.*?\)#";
$snapword = preg_replace($pattern,'',$snapword);
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'https://affiliate-api.flipkart.net/affiliate/search/json?query='.$snapword.'&resultCount=5');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_ENCODING , "gzip");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT,'php');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
$snapdeal = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
$time_end = microtime(true);
$time = $time_end - $time_start;
echo "Process Time: {$time}";
and the time it is taking is : Process Time: 5.3794288635254
Which is way too much, any ideas on how to reduce this?

Answer 1

Use curl_getinfo() to retrieve more accurate information. It also shows how much time spent resolving DNS etc.
You can see exact times taken for each step with the following keys:
CURLINFO_TOTAL_TIME - Total transaction time in seconds for last transfer
CURLINFO_NAMELOOKUP_TIME - Time in seconds until name resolving was complete
CURLINFO_CONNECT_TIME - Time in seconds it took to establish the connection
CURLINFO_PRETRANSFER_TIME - Time in seconds from start until just before file transfer begins
CURLINFO_STARTTRANSFER_TIME - Time in seconds until the first byte is about to be transferred
CURLINFO_SPEED_DOWNLOAD - Average download speed
CURLINFO_SPEED_UPLOAD - Average upload speed
$info = curl_getinfo($curl);
echo $info['connect_time']; // Same as above, but lower letters without CURLINFO
Most probably, the API is slow.
You could try to change to a faster DNS server (in Linux: /etc/resolv.conf).
Other than that, not much you can do.

Answer 2

I would see if you can determine your servers connection speed in your terminal/console window. This would greatly impact the time it takes to access a resource on the web. Also, you might want to consider thinking about the response time it takes from the resource, as the page needs to get the requested information and send it back.
I would also consider saving as much information that you need using a cronjob late at night so that you don't have to handle this upfront.