Bottlenecks slowing some part of my script - php

Question

I have a script that perform the following steps
A user logs in, adds an SMS message and specifies recipients. That information is added to "queued message table";
Some process sends the messages using an API and messages are moved to "sent message table";
A delivery report comes and messages are deleted from "sent message table" and a log entry referencing sent messages is added to "sent message log table".
when a large quantity of messages is queued up in the "queued message table", steps (2) and (3) take a long time,
Before message is pushed to the API, a random unique id is generated for every recipients for later referencing when retrieving report, that id is used to table ' sent message log table'.
Below is the sample script
<?php
class Message {
/*
* random unique id for mobile number
*/
protected $mobile_ids = array();
public function add_unique_id($id, $mobile)
{
$this->mobile_ids[] = array($id, $mobile);
}
public function get_unique_id()
{
return $this->mobile_ids;
}
// The method that generated the xml for API
public function makeXML($param,$multi_part=false)
{
$xmlString =
"<SMS>
<authentification>
<username>sss</username>
<password>sss</password>
</authentification>
<message>
<sender>sender</sender>";
if($multi_part == "longSMS") $xmlString .= "<type>longSMS</type>";
$xmlString .= "<text>{$param['text']}</text></message><recipients>";
// Array of mobile numbers came from $param
$phone_numbers = $param['numbers'];
// Loop through the array and generate <gsm messageId='0001'>mobile</gsm>
foreach($phone_numbers as $mobile) {
// Generate id for mobile
$msg_id = $this->make_random_int();
/**
* This is the slow part of the script,
* IDs are added to the array for logging into the database
* When message is sent, i looped through the id and created a log for this message
**/
$this->add_unique_id($msg_id, $mobile);
$xmlString .= "<gsm messageId=\"{$msg_id}\">{$mobile}</gsm>";
}
$xmlString .= "</recipients></SMS>";
return $xmlString;
}
/**
* This is the method that created the log
* Log the sms
* You will need to call $msgid = $this->update_db('the sms')
* return value of $msgid is last_insert_id
*/
public function log_sms($msgid) {
// Log the currently sent message
$userData = array();
$now = date('Y-m-d H:i:s');
foreach ($this->mobile_ids as $data) {
$userData[] = "('{$msgid}', '{$data[0]}', '{$data[1]}', 'QUEUED', '0000-00-00', '0000-00-00', '{$now}')";
}
$query = 'INSERT INTO sent_sms_log (txtId,msgID,mobile,status,sentdate_time,deliver_date_time,sysdate_time) VALUES' . implode(',', $userData);
$this->ci->db->query($query);
$this->mobile_ids = array(); // reset the array
}
// Make random int
protected function make_random_int() {
$this->ci->load->helper('string');
$int = random_string('numeric', 12);
return $int;
}
/**
* Update database after sms sent
* #return int
*/
public function update_db($msg, $owner, $qid=0) {
$data = array('qid'=> $qid, 'sms' => $msg, 'date_time' => date('Y-m-d H:i:s'), 'owner' => $owner);
$this->ci->db->insert('f_sent_sms', $data);
return $this->ci->db->insert_id();
}
}

Answer 1

I'm guessing it could likely be the api you're working with. I've had to work with apis for different services that were extremely slow. Maybe try profiling different parts of the code with the benchmark class:
http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/libraries/benchmark.html
That'll be a quick and easy way to find the slowest parts of the code.

Answer 2

I'm guessing this is running on some kind of a loop right now? Instead of inserting an unknown number of records one at a time, check out the insert_batch() method for Active Record in the User Guide http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/database/active_record.html You can use one database call to insert all of your records. Instead of the loop inserting the data into the database, all the loop would have to do is build an array of all of the data that will be inserted. After the loop is done, run insert_batch('f_sent_sms', $my_data) for the array you just built.
It would be a good idea to benchmark it all too (before and after) as #Matthew already said.