My website takes too long to load data from my API - php

Question

It's my first time developing an API, which is why i'm not surpirsed it was running a little slow, taking 2-4 seconds to load (I used a microtime timer on my webpage).
But then I found out how long it took for the API commands to execute, they're around 0.002 seconds. So why when I use CURL in PHP, does it take another 2 seconds to load?
My API Connection Code:
function APIPost($DataToSend){
$APILink = curl_init();
curl_setopt($APILink,CURLOPT_URL, "http://api.subjectplanner.co.uk");
curl_setopt($APILink,CURLOPT_POST, 4);
curl_setopt($APILink,CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $DataToSend);
curl_setopt($APILink, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt($APILink, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
return curl_exec($APILink);
curl_close($APILink);
}
How I retrieve data in my web page:
$APIData=array(
'com'=>'todayslessons',
'json'=>'true',
'sid'=>$_COOKIE['SID']
);
$APIResult = json_decode(APIPost($APIData), true);
if($APIResult['functionerror']==0){
$Lessons['Error']=false;
$Lessons['Data']=json_decode($APIResult['data'], true);
}else{
$Lessons['Error']=true;
$Lessons['ErrorDetails']="An error has occured.";
}
The APIPost function is within a functions.php file, which is included at the begging of my page. The time it took from the begging of the second snippet of code, to the end is about 2.0126 seconds. What is the best way to fetch my API data?

Answer 1

This is just a guess, so please dont beat me up about it. But maybe its waiting for curl to complete i.e. timeout as you dont close curl before doing the return.
Try this tiny amendment see if it helps:
function APIPost($DataToSend){
$APILink = curl_init();
curl_setopt($APILink,CURLOPT_URL, "http://api.subjectplanner.co.uk");
curl_setopt($APILink,CURLOPT_POST, 4);
curl_setopt($APILink,CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $DataToSend);
curl_setopt($APILink, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt($APILink, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
$ret curl_exec($APILink);
curl_close($APILink);
return $ret;
}