python - How to speed up API requests?

Question

I've constructed the following little program for getting phone numbers using google's place api but it's pretty slow. When I'm testing with 6 items it takes anywhere from 4.86s to 1.99s and I'm not sure why the significant change in time. I'm very new to API's so I'm not even sure what sort of things can/cannot be sped up, which sort of things are left to the webserver servicing the API and what I can change myself.

import requests,json,time
searchTerms = input("input places separated by comma")

start_time = time.time() #timer
searchTerms = searchTerms.split(',')
for i in searchTerms:
    r1 = requests.get('https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/textsearch/json?query='+ i +'&key=MY_KEY')
    a = r1.json()
    pid = a['results'][0]['place_id']
    r2 = requests.get('https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/details/json?placeid='+pid+'&key=MY_KEY')
    b = r2.json()
    phone = b['result']['formatted_phone_number']
    name = b['result']['name']
    website = b['result']['website']
    print(phone+' '+name+' '+website)

print("--- %s seconds ---" % (time.time() - start_time))

Answer 1

You may want to send requests in parallel. Python provides multiprocessing module which is suitable for task like this.

Sample code:

from multiprocessing import Pool

def get_data(i):
    r1 = requests.get('https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/textsearch/json?query='+ i +'&key=MY_KEY')
    a = r1.json()
    pid = a['results'][0]['place_id']
    r2 = requests.get('https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/details/json?placeid='+pid+'&key=MY_KEY')
    b = r2.json()
    phone = b['result']['formatted_phone_number']
    name = b['result']['name']
    website = b['result']['website']
    return ' '.join((phone, name, website))

if __name__ == '__main__':
    terms = input("input places separated by comma").split(",")
    with Pool(5) as p:
        print(p.map(get_data, terms))