PHP Using cURL in PHP Using multi_curl to make multiple POST requests
Example
Sometimes we need to make a lot of POST requests to one or many different endpoints. To deal with this scenario, we can use multi_curl.
First of all, we create how many requests as needed exactly in the same way of the simple example and put them in an array.
We use the curl_multi_init and add each handle to it.
In this example, we are using 2 different endpoints:
//array of data to POST
$request_contents = array();
//array of URLs
$urls = array();
//array of cURL handles
$chs = array();
//first POST content
$request_contents[] = [
'a' => 'apple',
'b' => 'banana'
];
//second POST content
$request_contents[] = [
'a' => 'fish',
'b' => 'shrimp'
];
//set the urls
$urls[] = 'http://www.example.com';
$urls[] = 'http://www.example2.com';
//create the array of cURL handles and add to a multi_curl
$mh = curl_multi_init();
foreach ($urls as $key => $url) {
$chs[$key] = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($chs[$key], CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($chs[$key], CURLOPT_POST, true);
curl_setopt($chs[$key], CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $request_contents[$key]);
curl_multi_add_handle($mh, $chs[$key]);
}
Then, we use curl_multi_exec to send the requests
//running the requests
$running = null;
do {
curl_multi_exec($mh, $running);
} while ($running);
//getting the responses
foreach(array_keys($chs) as $key){
$error = curl_error($chs[$key]);
$last_effective_URL = curl_getinfo($chs[$key], CURLINFO_EFFECTIVE_URL);
$time = curl_getinfo($chs[$key], CURLINFO_TOTAL_TIME);
$response = curl_multi_getcontent($chs[$key]); // get results
if (!empty($error)) {
echo "The request $key return a error: $error" . "\n";
}
else {
echo "The request to '$last_effective_URL' returned '$response' in $time seconds." . "\n";
}
curl_multi_remove_handle($mh, $chs[$key]);
}
// close current handler
curl_multi_close($mh);
A possible return for this example could be:
The request to 'http://www.example.com' returned 'fruits' in 2 seconds.
The request to 'http://www.example2.com' returned 'seafood' in 5 seconds.
