Question

I am working on an API mashup in PHP of various popular APIs and would liek to implement rate limiting to ensure i am playing nice.

I did some research and have taken a look at CURLOPT_MAXCONNECTS and CURLOPT_TIMEOUT but I have some confusion about how they function.

As I understand it, likely incorrectly:

CURLOPT_MAXCONNECTS
---
  Each script that calls a cUrl request opens a connection.  
  When the MAXCONNECTS limit is reached, then the server delays the request.

CURLOPT_TIMEOUT
---
  The amount of time that the server will wait to make a connection.  
  Working with MAXCONNECTS, does that mean that cUrl will make the listed 
  number of connections and then wait up to TIMEOUT for an open thread?

So– I am, obviously, very confused about how cUrl actually functions with these parameters. The application I am developing needs to limit cUrl requests at different limits for each API I am calling. As I understand things, the cUrl options are server wide? Is there some method of attaching a token to a specific cUrl call and applying the limit per API that way? Do I need to work some global/shared memory magic?

Your truly and considerably confused,
Samantha.

Answer 1

CURLOPT_MAXCONNECTS is just the maximum number of simultaneous requests.
CURLOPT_TIMEOUT is the time cURL will wait before abording request in the case that there is no answer.

You’ll have to work you limits manually