Implementing Leaky Bucket Rate Limiting for External API

Hello,

I'm trying to make calls to Shopify's API using Guzzle and need rate limit the external requests.

I'm not quite sure how to do this.

I saw this library:

but not sure how to get it to work with Laravel (5.4). Would I need to implement the 'bootstrap' part in a service provider?

Any other recommendations on how to get this setup would be very helpful.

Thanks!

Best Answer

Level 3

Not sure about guzzle but i need to do the same so I will just write a little check to run on each api call.

On my API call to shopify grab the HTTP_X_SHOPIFY_SHOP_API_CALL_LIMIT header in the reponse which will return something like:

X-Shopify-Shop-Api-Call-Limit: 32/40

if ($call_limit == '39/40') { sleep(1); // Delay the script execution for 1 seconds }

If you are at 39 calls, wait a second before making the next api call.

The call rate you are at will drop 2 every second.

1 like

Level 2

thanks so much!

I forgot to mention that I did find a library that does incorporate checking from the headers as you mentioned

I have to figure out the best way to integrate the package into laravel. probably a service provider.

Level 2

@dhonions are you developing shopify apps using laravel?

Level 3

I am. It's an interesting process to say the least. :)

I ended up using RocketCode Api wrapper - uses curl and it is reliable.

Level 2

ok, i'll look into that. unless i missed something, this library doesn't seem to read the header for rate limiting though.

or are you adding that around your API call as you mentioned earlier?

It would be nice to create a little group that is doing Shopify / Laravel development.

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