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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-09T16:10:34+00:00

I am in the process of developing a web-based RESTful api for a client.

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I am in the process of developing a web-based RESTful api for a client. Everything works great apart from one request, in which I need to request the Foursquare API for each row.

The URL for this request is: http://api.example.com/v1/users/times.

Currently the response of a request to that url is:

{
"response": {
    "user": {
        ... some user info ...
        "times": [
            {
                "id": "8",
                "venue_fq_id": "4b81eb25f964a52000c430e3",
                "user_id": "1",
                "wait_length": "4468",
                "created_at": "2012-06-09 21:45:43"
            },
            {
                "id": "9",
                "venue_fq_id": "4aad285af964a520c05e20e3",
                "user_id": "1",
                "wait_length": "8512",
                "created_at": "2012-06-09 21:45:43"
            },
            {
                "id": "10",
                "venue_fq_id": "42377700f964a52024201fe3",
                "user_id": "1",
                "wait_length": "29155",
                "created_at": "2012-06-09 21:45:44"
            },
            {
                "id": "11",
                "venue_fq_id": "45c88764f964a5206e421fe3",
                "user_id": "1",
                "wait_length": "33841",
                "created_at": "2012-06-09 21:45:44"
            },
            {
                "id": "12",
                "venue_fq_id": "430d0a00f964a5203e271fe3",
                "user_id": "1",
                "wait_length": "81739",
                "created_at": "2012-06-09 21:45:44"
            }
        ]
    }
},
"stat": "ok"
}

However, the venue_fq_id being returned in the response.user.times array is relative to a venue on the Foursquare API. I tried running a curl request to the Foursquare API for each row, but the performance is incredibly slow. Please can you give some examples of ways in which I could speed up the performance while retrieving the same information I would had I accessed requested the F/Q API each time?

Here’s my code:

$query = $this->db->query("SELECT * FROM `wait_times` WHERE `user_id` = ?", array($email_address));

$wait_times = $query->result();

foreach ($wait_times as $wait_time) {

    $wait_time->venue = $this->venue_info($wait_time->venue_fq_id);

}

function venue_info($fq_id) {

    $ch = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "https://api.foursquare.com/v2/venues/4b522afaf964a5200b6d27e3");
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);

    $response = json_decode(curl_exec($ch));
    curl_close($ch);

    return $response['response']['venue'];

}
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    You’re wasting a horrendous amount of time instantiating/tearing down CURL objects. This prevents you from taking advantage of HTTP keep-alives, forcing curl to start a new tcp connection for every request you make.

    Curl handles CAN be reused. e.g.

    $ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);


function venue_info($fq_id) {
   global $ch;
   curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "https://api.foursquare.com/v2/venues/4b522afaf964a5200b6d27e3");
   $resp = curl_exec($ch) or die(curl_error($ch));
   $json = json_decode($resp);
   return($json);
}
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