Question

I am making a WebService in php which my website will use to query for information with Ajax calls.

At first i just did it the standard way with the built in php mysql lib, and wrote all the query’s manually and made the whole data model in MySQL Workbench and so forth. This was VERY time consuming and if i had to change the data model afterwards everything would start to become very complicated so i decided to look for a PHP ORM, and i found RedBean which seems to me to be pure magic and joy.

Except i struggle very much with performance issues. My site is a site for users to create their own lists of tv series. i query an external source for a serie and insert it into my database if its not already there otherwise i get it from my own database ofc.

the xml i get back from this external source lists the serie, seasons, episodes and so on and i store it all like this.

function InsertSerie($serie) {
    $serieBean = $this->CreateSerieBean($serie->Series);
    $genreBeans = $this->CreateGenreBeans($serie->Series->Genre);
    $actorBeans = $this->CreateActorBeans($serie->Series->Actors);
    $episodeBeans = array();
    foreach ($serie->Episode as $episode) {
        $episodeBean = $this->CreateEpisodeBean($episode);
        $seasonBean = $this->CreateSeasonBean($episode);
        $writerBeans = $this->CreateWriterBeans($episode->Writer);
        $guestBeans = $this->CreateActorBeans($episode->GuestStars);
        $directorBeans = $this->CreateDirectorBeans($episode->Director);
        R::associate($episodeBean, $seasonBean);
        foreach ($writerBeans as $bean) {
            R::associate($episodeBean, $bean);
        }
        foreach ($guestBeans as $bean) {
            R::associate($episodeBean, $bean);
        }
        foreach ($directorBeans as $bean) {
            R::associate($episodeBean, $bean);
        }
        $episodeBeans[] = $episodeBean;
    }
    foreach ($genreBeans as $bean) {
        R::associate($serieBean, $bean);
    }
    foreach ($actorBeans as $bean) {
        R::associate($serieBean, $bean);
    }
    foreach ($episodeBeans as $bean) {
        R::associate($serieBean, $bean);
    }
}

function CreateGenreBeans($genres) {
    if(empty($genres)) { return; }
    $genre = explode("|", $genres);
$genreBeans = array();
foreach ($genre as $g) {
    if($g != '') {
            $genreBeans[] = $this->CreateGenreBean($g);
        }
    }
    return $genreBeans;
}

function CreateGenreBean($genre) {
    $bean = R::dispense('genre');
    $bean->name = (string)$genre;
    return $bean;
}

function CreateDirectorBeans($directors) {
    if(empty($directors)) { return; }
    $director = explode("|", $directors);
$directorBeans = array();
foreach ($director as $d) {
    if($d != '') {
            $directorBeans[] = $this->CreateDirectorBean($d);
        }
    }
    return $directorBeans;
}

function CreateDirectorBean($director) {
    $bean = R::dispense('director');
    $bean->name = (string)$director;
    return $bean;
}

function CreateActorBeans($actors) {
    if(empty($actors)) { return; }
    $actor = explode("|", $actors);
$actorBeans = array();
foreach ($actor as $a) {
    if($a != '') {
            $actorBeans[] = $this->CreateActorBean($a);
        }
    }
    return $actorBeans;
}

function CreateActorBean($actor) {
    $bean = R::dispense('actor');
    $bean->name = (string)$actor;
    return $bean;
}

function CreateWriterBeans($writers) {
    if(empty($writers)) { return; }
    $writer = explode("|", $writers);
$writerBeans = array();
foreach ($writer as $w) {
    if($w != '') {
            $writerBeans[] = $this->CreateWriterBean($w);
        }
    }
    return $writerBeans;
}

function CreateWriterBean($writer) {
    $bean = R::dispense('writer');
    $bean->name = (string)$writer;
    return $bean;
}

function CreateSerieBean($serie) {  
    $bean = R::dispense('serie');
    $bean->serie_id = (string)$serie->id;
    $bean->airs_day_of_week = (string)$serie->Airs_DayOfWeek;
    $bean->airs_time = (string)$serie->Airs_Time;
    $bean->content_rating = (string)$serie->ContentRating;
    $bean->first_aired = (string)$serie->FirstAired;
    $bean->imdb_id = (string)$serie->IMDB_ID;
    $bean->language = (string)$serie->Language;
    $bean->network = (string)$serie->Network;
    $bean->overview = (string)$serie->Overview;
    $bean->rating = (string)$serie->Rating;
    $bean->rating_count = (string)$serie->RatingCount;
    $bean->run_time = (string)$serie->Runtime;
    $bean->serie_name = (string)$serie->SeriesName;
    $bean->status = (string)$serie->Status;
    $bean->last_updated = (string)$serie->lastupdated;
    $bean->thumbnail = (string)$serie->thumbnail;
    return $bean;
}

function CreateSeasonBean($episode) {
    $bean = R::dispense('season');
    $bean->season_id = (string)$episode->seasonid;
    $bean->season_number = (string)$episode->SeasonNumber;
    return $bean;
}

function CreateEpisodeBean($episode) {
    $bean = R::dispense('episode');
    $bean->episode_id = (string)$episode->id;
    $bean->episode_name = (string)$episode->EpisodeName;
    $bean->episode_number = (string)$episode->EpisodeNumber;
    $bean->first_aired = (string)$episode->FirstAired;
    $bean->imdb_id = (string)$episode->IMDB_ID;
    $bean->language = (string)$episode->Language;
    $bean->overview = (string)$episode->Overview;
    $bean->rating = (string)$episode->Rating;
    $bean->rating_count = (string)$episode->RatingCount;
    $bean->last_updated = (string)$episode->lastupdated;
    return $bean;
}

The problem is it takes around 5 minutes to insert one serie and it inserts duplicates as well, doing R::freeze(); doesn’t help performance either.

Q: How can i fix this issue, what can i do to make redbean perform better, what can i do with my own code to make it work better, or should i simply use a different solution/approach framework etc?

Tried shared lists like suggested but with the same result.

function InsertSerie($serie) {
    $serieBean = $this->CreateSerieBean($serie->Series);
    ...
    foreach ($serie->Episode as $episode) {
        $episodeBean = $this->CreateEpisodeBean($serieBean ,$episode);
        ...
        $this->CreateDirectorBeans($serieBean, $episode->Director);
        $serieBean->sharedEpisode[] = $episodeBean;
    }
    R::store($serieBean);
}

function CreateDirectorBeans($bean, $directors) {
    if(empty($directors)) { return; }
    $director = explode("|", $directors);
    foreach ($director as $d) {
        if($d != '') {
            $bean->sharedDirector[] = $this->CreateDirectorBean($d);
        }
    }
}

function CreateDirectorBean($director) {
    $bean = R::dispense('director');
    $bean->name = (string)$director;
    return $bean;
}
    ....

Answer 1

I finally found out how to lower the execution time from 5 minutes to about 11sec, still takes allot of time but considering the amount of data and work it has to do i think its good for that hardware.

I added these code lines

R::Begin();
R::associate($bean1, $bean2);
...
R::commit();

Now it gathers all the work and performs it in one big transaction like the unit of work pattern. Also to prevent inserting duplicates i switched to using

$bean = R::findOrDispense($type, $sql, $values);

Then i just return the bean if it already exists if not i create a new one and return it.